The Delhi cloud seeding experiment failed in its primary objective of inducing artificial rain to try and bring down the pollution levels over the NCR that have gone through the roof since Diwali day. Any claims of the efficacy of cloud seeding as a way of lessening pollution must be taken with a hefty pinch of the particulate matter that makes everyone living through the winter in the NCR gasp for breath.
This experiment in a collaboration between the government of Delhi and IIT-Kanpur could only have been engendered by political gamesmanship because the conditions of a dry winter were hardly right for attempting to create artificial rain. Such measures have been largely given up around the world. Even in places where they still try them, as in Abu Dhabi in the UAE, it leads more often to a change in the microclimate rather than any benefit from artificially induced rain.
Whenever they faced drought or heat wave conditions, many states in India, including Tamil Nadu, tried this shot in the dark method to force nature to part with some of her bounty of moisture outside the monsoon season. The results were so scanty as to have sown permanent doubts over the method of spraying low clouds with chemicals to the extent they have all but been abandoned.
Such short cuts to controlling pollution to satisfy their capital base are not going to work. In fact, many Central ministries have advised against spending money on cloud seeding to mitigate the large problem of atmospheric pollution. In its inability to take concrete measures, Delhi is clutching at straws.
If New Delhi were to take Beijing as an example, it would have to take an abundance of measures to begin cleaning the atmosphere, the rivers, the drainage and water treatment systems, the traffic and construction-demolition processes to control dust and pollution. The political will to take disciplined measures has never been known to exist in the country. Nor do we have the eyes and ears of the whole population to help control what is affecting all the people in depriving them of a quality life.
