New Delhi, At a time when the absence of a Doppler radar at Banihal in Jammu and Kashmir made a massive difference in proper forecast ahead of the Amarnath Yatra tragedy on Friday, it turns out there are three more such places in the Himalayas where commissioning of similar radars is pending.

As reported by IANS on Saturday, a Doppler radar atop Banihal is not yet functional, a crucial link that could have helped avert the tragic death of at least 17 persons and several others who were washed away in the flash floods as a result of heavy rains on Friday evening near the holy cave shrine of Amarnath.

A Doppler radar is an important tool that gives the India Meteorological Department (IMD) real time, more accurate assessment of clouds and rainfall in a given range of the radar, 100 km in case of the radar at Banihal.

Doppler radar is installed at a high point to get clearer access to the atmospheric changes in the hilly terrain.

The IMD, the premier weather forecast agency under the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), has maintained that Doppler radars are used for operational forecast systems restricted to a few hours and cannot be used for a long-term forecast.

Forecasting the monsoon is already a tricky thing and forecasting rain related events in the Himalayan region is a further tricky aspect. Post the 2014 Kashmir floods, there was a lot of hue and cry about the lack of observational network, with the Doppler radars occupying a major role in the discourse.

Just a year prior to it, in June 2013, Uttarakhand had witnessed the massive Kedarnath floods.

The government had then decided to install as many as 10 such radars in North-west India. As per Ministry officials, out of the 10 sanctioned Doppler radars, except one at Aya Nagar in Delhi, nine others - three each - were to be installed in the erstwhile state of Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

As of date, those already commissioned include Kufri (Himachal Pradesh), Mukteshwar (Uttarakhand), Leh (Ladakh), Jammu, Surkunda Devi (Uttarakhand) and Aya Nagar (Delhi).

Doppler radars are yet to be installed and commissioned at Murari Devi (Himachal Pradesh), Jot (Himachal Pradesh), Banihal (J&K) and Lansdowne (Uttarakhand), the officials said.

The IMD has given technical and operational reasons for the delay, including the hilly terrain and unmanned locations where the radars are to be installed. The pandemic too delayed the work for some time.

"It was to be completed in the last financial year. We have gone for all Indian components under the Aatmanirbhar Bharat programme. Therefore the delay," officials said.

Now, while the radar at Banihal is already installed and should be made operational in the coming week, if all goes well, the MoES officials said the work would be completed for the other three by December.