India is set to buy a dedicated aircraft to carry out experiments related to weather forecast.
A tender is expected to be floated by next month and the aircraft could be procured in the next 18 to 24 months, Union Minister for Earth Sciences Harsh Vardhan said.
The aircraft, which is likely to cost around INR 150 crore (US $22 million), will be bought by the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, an institute under Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), for conducting experiments related to cloud observation, cloud and aerosol interaction and study gases in the upper layer of the atmosphere, among other things.
India will be one of the few nations in world and perhaps the only one in South and Southeast Asia to have such an aircraft.