IRPE to set up radar for weather forecast

The Institute of Radio Physics and Electronics (IRPE) of Calcutta University will set up a state-of-the-art weather radar in Nadia district.The resolution of the data images of the radar will be several notches higher than the existing weather forecast radar of the India Meteorological Department, IRPE professor Ashik Paul told PTI.

The radar, the first of its kind in eastern India, will come up at Haringhata.The proposed radar will have a total of 475 antennas, each fitted with a maximum 2 KW capacity power transmitter, Paul, who is coordinating the project, he said."It will be a DST (Department of Science and Technology)- funded integrated radar facility project which will operate at a frequency of 53 MHz," Paul said.The radar will make a correct round-the-clock forecast of the atmosphere of the region through high-resolution images and help the nation and the foreign countries with its data, Dean of Technology, Calcutta University, Amlan Chakraborty said.

The radar will be set up on 10 acres of land at Haringhata in Nadia district. Calcutta University's radio physics research facilities are at Haringhata.Two centrally constituted panels - a project implementation committee and a technical committee - were monitoring the project, which was given to the CU by the DST in 2016."We will incorporate modifications based on their suggestions while installing the radar," Paul said.A smaller prototype of the radar has been built with lesser number of antennas and it will be examined by the technical committee.