New radar to track cloud-seeding

If the clouds hold their peace till June, 11 water-starved districts in Maharashtra could be looking at some relief. The state irrigation machinery is adding another radar station at Shegaon in Buldana district to complement the existing one at Baramati, the experimental ground for its cloud-seeding exercise in September last year, Irrigation Secretary Nandakumar Vadnere said. Shegaon falls under the hard-hit Vidarbha region.

With much of the required infrastructure in place after their experimental run in September 2003, irrigation mandarins are upbeat and expect 20 per cent over recorded rainfall. 8216;8216;Last time, we started late and the monsoon had already gone. This time, we are on schedule. Although the drought situation has been on for several months, the cloudbank starts building up around this time of the year, which is why it couldn8217;t have been done earlier. But this time, we can swing into action within a few days of getting the go-ahead,8217;8217; a senior official said. He said though there were chances that the 8216;seeds8217; might not dissipate, success was likely after similar experiments in Pakistan. As reported by The Indian Express on April 30, the Irrigation Department has begun floating global tenders for cloud-seeding operations.

The firm given the contract after the May 15 deadline will provide a 8216;8216;consolidated package8217;8217;, Vadnere said. 8216;8216;They will provide cloud-seeding aircraft, trained personnel and required equipment and conduct the project for us,8217;8217; he said adding, in all probability it would be a US-based company. Cloud-seeding, resorted to in some western nations to counter global warming, will not be having a high-profile role here. But it8217;s still a costly affair involving sophisticated equipment.

The state government8217;s Rs 18.5 crore demarcation for the four-month project was 8216;8216;the upper limit8217;8217;, Vadnere said.