KATHMANDU: If everything goes well, Nepal will have sophisticated radars installed in three places of the country in next two-three years which will help government authorities to gather information relating to precipitation in watershed areas and warn downstream areas of rivers that could bring floods.

Rishi Ram Sharma, Director General, Department of Hydrology and Meteorology, said his office would write to the Ministry of Information and Communications seeking frequency for three radars that it wants to install in three areas of the country.

“We have done a lot to reform our weather warning system in recent years and I am sure we will have our weather information system on par with developed countries in two-three years,” he added.

Sharma said he would request the government in a few days to assign frequency for three radars so that agencies concerned could move the preparation works without delay. The department wants to install Doppler Weather C band radars. One radar costs around Rs 25-30 crores.

The department wants to install one radar in Bhojpur or Udaypur, another in Palpa or Nawalparasi and the third in Surkhet in order to cover the entire country. Sharma said the radars would basically help the authorities to warn the residents of hill and plain areas of the rivers that could bring floods during the rainy season. DoHM will install one radar on its own, which it will get from India as assistance under an agreement signed between SAARC and Indian Space and Research Organisation.

Sharma said he would seek help from a donor agency/country for the third radar and therefore he was seeking frequency for three radars so that the moment a donor is ready to help, he could tell the donor to make preparation for the same.

“As far as getting one radar from India is assigned, it is not clear who will bear the installation costs. We will seek help from India to provide installation costs as well, and I am sure the southern neighbour which is helping with the radar worth crores of rupees will also provide us the installation cost,” Sharma said.

Radar can send signals up to 200 kilometres and help gather information about precipitation. “With the help of radars, we can immediately asses which river could bring floods, and warn the public of the danger,” Sharma added.

Sharma said if his office could install radars in the mountain region, it could help all the hill areas warn of the dangers of floods, but high altitude, rugged terrain and lack of road access were the bottlenecks. He said radars in Nepal would also be useful for India to warn the public of flood risks during the monsoon.

Sharma said the manufacturing of radar suitable to the assigned frequency could take two years.

Sharma said his department had installed warning system in most of the perennial rivers in Nepal and was also planning to extend the same service to flash flood prone rivers. “This year we are going to install the warning system in Kankai, but we will gradually expand this system in other such rivers as well.”