Karnataka to Go for Cloud Seeding if Monsoon Fails

Faced with unprecedented water scarcity leading to the successive droughts in Karnataka, the state government is toying with the idea of cloud seeding to get artificial rain in parts of the state at the start of monsoon, especially in catchment areas of major reservoirs.

The contingency plan will come in handy in case there is another failed monsoon which will be detrimental to the economy of the state which may mar the prospects of the ruling dispensation which will go to the polls in 2019 to reelect itself.

The government has already prepared a draft bid document for the cloud-seeding project and is availing the services of an ex-director of the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology who is assisting the government with scientific viability for implementing the project. The project will be processed in the next couple of months and kept ready if the monsoon fails

The department has constituted a technical team to identify the areas where cloud seeding would be a viable proposition. Once the viability survey has been conducted by the team, the project will be sent to the Centre for clearance.

According to Krishna Byre Gowda, Karnataka Agricukure minister, scientific data exist to prove that the existing cloud seed technologies are feasible in producing artificial rain.