बादल तो आए हैं… बो दूँ क्या?“The clouds are here… should I sow?”
I am VarshaDoot, the rain's messenger. Every week I carry one letter to each block: the chance that the rain starts, stops or pours, and what to do about it, in the farmer's own language. My first round covers all 534 blocks of Bihar.
of our team members are from Bihar
We know its blocks, its kharif crops and how people there talk about rain. A pilot we can check with our own eyes, in our own languages, is a pilot we can trust before we ask anyone else to.
We plan to use Bhashini, the Government of India's language platform, to translate the advisory templates into India's scheduled languages. A native speaker checks each translation before it is used, and messages are still filled in from those fixed templates, so no AI writes advice at the moment it is sent.
NowLater
Nothing in the system is tied to Bihar: blocks, crops and languages are settings. The stories below come from the Bihar pilot, with real blocks and real seasons.
I send the chance of onset for each of the next 4 weeks, and I check for false starts, so seed is not wasted.
These are the real daily rain totals over Barh, from IMD's gridded record. Drag the sprout through the season.
Bihar blocks had a false monsoon start in 2009, and again in 2022.From IMD rainfall 1990–2023, using our onset definition: 20 mm in 3 days with no long dry spell after it.
Smart India Hackathon 2026 · Problem statementSIH26086
Chance of a dry spell in the week of 15–21 June 2022, as the system would have issued it that morning, using only data from before that day.
Unfolding the map…
District view averages its blocks, to show what a coarse outlook hides.
Better than the usual rate ↑ · worse ↓
Week 1 beats the usual rate. It is sent with its real confidence.
Weeks 2–4 do not, so for those weeks I send the usual rate and say so.
On 2024 and 2025, years the model never saw, week-1 dry-spell error was 32% lower than using the usual chance.
Flowering is when rice can least afford to go thirsty. This is the message the system actually issued that week, word for word.
534 blocks, each with its own chance.
Hindi, Bhojpuri or English, by SMS, WhatsApp, Telegram or the app.
Every number comes with the usual chance and how sure I am.
Every action points to an ICAR or KVK plan. No AI writes the message.
You opt in, you can stop any time, and only your block is stored, never your location.
A basic phone with SMS is enough.
Find your block, read this week's letter, or replay a past monsoon and judge me yourself.