Thanks Mr Prabhakar for your reply. Is there no other way than programming ??? meaning through Arc toolbox. 

Try DIVA-GIS then.

Newer ArcGIS versions support both ASCII as well as GRD file formats. Which ArcMap version are you using? If there are open source options such as through R and DIVA-GIS, I would definitely choose them in place of ArcGIS but if you are not keen on programming, then try searching with the keywords such as 'ASCII' in the ArcMAP Search Window. Check attached image. 

Which specific website did you use to download the data?

Hi James, thanks for your response. I am using ArcMap 10.1. The GRD file doesnot open and the ASCII conversion of .TXT file is also not working showing error. 

Its an ordered data from IMD. I will try using the DIVA-GIS option if that works

If you are willing to share the data, I can try with ArcMap 10.3.1 and see if it works. If not you can try other alternatives.

I can only see a text file. When I checked the contents, 'Lat' info is present, 'Long' seems to be missing? Anyway I tried with ArcMAP 10.3.1 but it doesn't seem to read. Does IMD indicate any specific steps to process the data for visualization on their website? Any preferred open source or proprietary software suggestions on IMD's website?

Hi Sujatha, is it necessary to read the data in ArcMAP alone or in any programming tools is  OK for you. What is your basic requirement. If needed I may analyze and plot the data as per your requirement. If your are willing to share the data. I will analyze with MATLAB as I am familiar with it.

Hi Sujata Upgupta, my collegue, Dr. Noam Halfon, was so kind to answer you (because it is his field, not mine). He asked me to forward you his answer: "Use "Ascii to Raster" function. This tool  is available also in 10.1 version. You can find it in "Conversion tools" and  also in the help menu." (courtesy of Dr. Noam Halfon, The Israel Meteorological Service)

Hi Osetinsky, 

Thank you so much.

I tried this tool but its not working and showing an error.

Hi Dr Srinivasan,

The ASCII text file is as attached. I do not have much programming practice so was looking for an option in ArcGIS. It would be good if there is an easier method through programming too but my need is to get the data into shapefile or raster format so that I can carry out spatial analysis in GIS

Dear Sujata Upgupta, please see the Dr. Noam Halfon's answer: "It is possible that lacks a header including the basic information about a lattice: cell size, number of rows and number of columns in a lattice,  the coordinates of the southwest corner according to the lattice projection, a numeric code that represents "no data", for example "-9999"."

Dear Sujata Upgupta, please look at the header components example our specialists in ArcGIS are talking about: "NCOLS 201

NROWS 481

XLLCORNER  99627

YLLCORNER 349864

CELLSIZE 1000

NODATA_VALUE -999". (courtesy N. Halfon and E. Vadislavsky, the Israel Neteorological Service)