New Delhi: The India Meteorological Department (IMD) will offer scholarships to hundreds of science postgraduates to attract them towards meteorology and staff a department that is facing nearly 33 percent human resource shortage.

"We are ready to give stipend for the entire last year of the M.Sc students. The aim is to attract them to this branch of science," Earth Sciences Minister Prithviraj Chavan said at the 135th foundation day of IMD here on Friday.

"We will also send them for a year or two for foreign training and I am not bothered if some one stays back too. What we need is young talents for this branch of knowledge - meteorology, seismology etc," he added.

Chavan also asked the IMD authorities to develop a model through which they can get bright minds.

"The government is ready to hire and fill up the huge vacancies but the problem is where to get the talent. Bright minds are going to IT, banking and financial services and here we have to develop a model to attract them towards us," the minister said.

IMD Director General Ajit Tyagi said that his department is facing a huge manpower shortage. "We are working with just two thirds of our required manpower," he said.

When asked, IMD officials said that they will soon devise the scholarship plan as they need human resources badly.

The day is being celebrated to commemorate H.F. Blanford taking over as Imperial Meteorological Reporter on January 15, 1875, at Kolkata, the headquarters of what was later renamed the India Meteorological Department. It later shifted from Kolkata to Shimla, then to Poona (now Pune) and finally to New Delhi.

The IMD is the principal government agency in all matters relating to meteorology, seismology and allied subjects.

India has some of the oldest meteorological observatories of the world - those at Kolkata date from 1785 and at Chennai from 1796.

From a modest beginning in 1875, IMD has progressively expanded its infrastructure for meteorological observations, communications, forecasting and weather services, and has achieved a parallel scientific growth.

The minister also inaugurated the installation of a super-computing device at the IMD headquarters here, which will improve the accuracy of short and medium term weather forecasting. IANS