ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) has initiated a $50 million project in collaboration with the World Bank to upgrade its system by installing state-of-the-art radars and establishing 300 new weather stations, a top official confirmed this week.

According to the Global Climate Risk Index, Pakistan ranks as the fifth most vulnerable country to climate change, facing extreme weather events like floods, droughts and heatwaves that significantly affect agriculture and infrastructure.

Given the situation, PMD’s work of providing weather forecasts and issuing public warnings to ensure protection, safety and general awareness has acquired greater significance, though it faces limitations as the majority of its systems rely on manual observation methods.

“The project of the World Bank is of $50 million,” Sahibzad Khan, the PMD director general, told Arab News in an exclusive interview. “In the first phase, we will [spend] $40 million, but we will also get the remaining $10 million as this is a three-year project.”

He said the project was approved in September 2023, and after completing all the documentation, it was operationalized this week.

“Under the project, we will have 300 automated weather stations,” he added. “We are installing five radars from World Bank and to integrate observational data, radar data, satellite data, we are installing high-performance computers.”

Khan informed the network of weather stations will be established within the next three years, hoping it will make the PMD system significantly more efficient, with a much higher rate of accuracy and improved forecasting capabilities.

“We will have 105 new automated weather stations in Balochistan and 75 each in [Khyber Pakhtunkhwa] and Punjab and 45 will be used in Sindh which will increase our capacity of data collection,” he said.

The PMD official informed Pakistan currently had around 100 manual observatory weather stations across the country but needed more, as a larger network would significantly increase the accuracy of weather forecasts.

“According to the World Meteorological Organization, every 40 kilometers should have an observational station but we have not been able to do it in Pakistan yet,” he added.

Khan said his organization will also install five modern radars with different ranges, with the most advanced ones in Lahore and Gwadar. He also pointed out the PMD will also get a high-performing computing component to integrate and process all the data.

Speaking to Arab News, PMD director Dr. Zaheer Ahmed Babar said the forecast system required a robust network of weather observatories.

“We are trying to invest in the observation system because weather observation system not only consists of the observatories, it also consists of the radars, it also consists of the satellite images,” he added.

Babar said the weather system depended upon the initial conditions, which change every three hours.

He informed that PMD experts generated forecasts by visualizing and analyzing various models, subsequently publishing the information in text form on the website.

“The National Disaster Management Authority, Provincial Disaster Management Authorities, and the District Management Authorities are then given this information in text form,” he added.

ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Finance and Revenue Muhammad Aurangzeb said on Thursday the government plans to eliminate the “non-filer” category by taking punitive actions against those who previously paid nominal amounts on various transactions to avoid filing tax returns.

The minister made the statement in an interview with Voice of America, a day after the International Monetary Fund (IMF) approved a $7 billion loan program to support Pakistan’s cash-strapped economy.

The government has implemented stringent economic reforms in recent years, including the removal of subsidies and increased power tariffs, based on recommendations from the global lender to stabilize the financial outlook before achieving macroeconomic stability.

Aurangzeb noted, after the loan approval in a separate statement, that Pakistan will face “transitional pain” if it aims to make this the last IMF program by continuing with structural reforms.

“Previously, we had this system where if someone was a non-filer, we said you can pay a nominal rate and stay outside the tax system,” he said during the interview. “Now, we’re taking it to a punitive level. It’s about time we address this invention of the non-filer status, which I think only exists in our country.”

“As a country, our hand has been forced,” he continued. “We no longer have the capacity to allow anyone in this country to remain a non-filer.”

The minister acknowledged that the IMF conditionalities had become more stringent with every loan program, attributing it to the “credibility and trust deficit.”

“We sign the structural benchmarks but never follow through,” he said. “That’s why they are strict. This time, we are going to go through the reforms.”

He maintained the government aims to widen the tax net by incorporating the agriculture, retail and wholesale sectors.

He also pointed out that measures are being taken to improve compliance and enforcement, which had previously been weak.

The IMF and World Bank chiefs have already praised Pakistan’s recent economic reforms, though international lending agencies also stress the need to stay the course in order to further strengthen the national economy.