An agreement has been reached between the Department of Water and Meteorology and the Association of Independent Power Producers, Nepal (IPPAN) to develop an early warning system in hydropower projects. Director General of the Department Kamal Ram Joshi and IPPAN President Ganesh Karki signed the MoU at an event organized in Kathmandu on the occasion of National Monsoon Day on Wednesday.

Energy Water Resources and Irrigation Minister Deepak Khadka said that the successful implementation of this historic agreement will prove to be a milestone in the energy sector. Khadka also expressed his belief that even if the cost of the project increases during its implementation, it will be insignificant compared to the benefits obtained from advance notice and that all projects will take it easily.

Energy Secretary Suresh Acharya said that the agreement between IPPAN and the department will have a great meaning for minimizing the damage to the project. Water Resources and Irrigation Secretary Sarita Dawadi and National Planning Commission member RP Bichcha said that this agreement will be historic.

Kamal Ram Joshi, director general of the department, said that the agreement will play an important role in preventing the damage caused by floods and landslides in hydropower projects. He said that this agreement was reached between IPPAN and the department with the purpose of connecting the flood and landslide warning system installed in the hydropower projects promoted by the private sector and which will be installed in the future with the network of the Department of Water and Meteorology, to provide timely information about the risk of rain, flood and landslides at the power project site, and to reduce human and physical damage. 

Ganesh Karki, president of IPPAN, said that after the agreement, the effect of floods and landslides in the hydropower project will not cause huge physical and human losses. He said that even a hydropower project located 28 kilometers away could not be saved due to the floods in Kathmandu last year and said that there was another problem in terms of payment of insurance claims after the floods.

He expressed his belief that the damage to the project will be reduced and the claims to the insurance company will also be reduced with the early warning system. "A lot of damage can be reduced with 1 day's advance notice, but the technology to get 7 days' advance notice has already arrived here . We believe that this will definitely reduce the damage to the project,'' he said.

1/1 representative will be appointed from IPPAN and the department for the implementation of this agreement for 5 years . If both parties agree, its time can be extended and if one of the parties does not agree, this agreement can be terminated .

Although the memorandum of understanding can be amended at any time by giving one month's prior notice to both parties, it is stipulated that the consent of the Ministry of Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation should be obtained when amending the memorandum. According to the agreement, the department will provide IPPAN and its member projects with real-time data on rainfall and water level based on the river basin from May 15 to October 15 through Application Programming Interface (API). is . In this, the department will provide the data classified according to the river basin and the weather forecast of the respective place for 3 days or until available, through File Transfer Protocol (FTF) link to IPPA . The data provided by the