LAHORE: The Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) has earmarked one acre land for the installation of a Rs2 billion radar in Multan donated by Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), said sources.

They said JICA had donated four radars as a grant out of which two have already been installed in Islamabad and Karachi. The fourth one would be installed in Sukkur, thus covering the whole of Pakistan for meteorological purposes. JICA would facilitate installation, calibration and training of the concerned staff under this arrangement, they added.

The sources said the department of irrigation has handed over its land to the PMD where construction of relevant buildings would start for future purposes. An amount of Rs3 million has also been handed over to the public works department for the construction of offices and the staff colony.

They said the building would be operational as regional office once the province of South Punjab is created by the government. All the arrangements have been put in place while keeping in mind the regional meteorological requirements, they added.

They have further informed that the irrigation department has handed over state land under government to government arrangement and JICA would bear the construction and installation cost of the radar. The said tower would be of the height of 73 meters from the surface while a piling of 80 feet down the earth would be carried out to install it on permanent basis. Already, JICA has spent Rs160 million on soil testing of the land before installation of the radar.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022

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