Cloud seeding plane to fly in from America
Operation may start in first week of August.
Mumbai: The Maharashtra government on Friday received permission from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) to have an aircraft flown from the US to Maharashtra to induce showers in the state’s rain-deficient areas via cloud seeding. The procedure is likely to commence in the parched Marathwada region in the first week of August.
Meanwhile, the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), which is under the ministry of earth sciences, has accepted a request of the state government to carry out cloud seeding in the rain-deprived Osmanabad, Latur, Solapur and Nanded districts. Two aircraft of the IITM, which are stationed in Maharashtra’s Solapur district, will spring into action wherever suitable clouds are visible over the four districts, an official said.
The state government had given a contract to a Bengaluru-based company, Khyati Climate Modification Consultants (LLP), to carry out cloud seeding in Maharashtra. An official said that the radar equipment and aircraft of the firm are in America currently and it would take a few days before they are brought to Maharashtra.
Once the aeroplane is in the state, the DGCA will carry out tests on it, he added.
The official added, “The state is hopeful that the right kind of clouds form in parched districts by August 1.”
The government on Friday also formed a steering committee under the chairmanship of the secretary of the relief and rehabilitation (R&R) department to monitor the operation.
Cloud seeding is a type of weather modification that aims to change the amount of precipitation that falls from clouds by dispersing substances into the air that serve as cloud condensation or ice nuclei, which alter the microphysical processes within the cloud.