IIT Kanpur puts on hold cloud seeding activity in Delhi for today
The cloud-seeding activity planned for today over Delhi has been put on hold due to insufficient moisture in the clouds.
The cloud-seeding activity planned for today over Delhi has been put on hold due to insufficient moisture in the clouds.
The controversy erupted after the BJP government announced it had conducted cloud seeding operations on Tuesday to mitigate the city's pollution
A Cessna aircraft took off from the IIT Kanpur airstrip at around 12:15 pm on Tuesday, with the mission of creating artificial rain in the capital. The IIT team had been fully prepared since morning, with experts closely monitoring the weather.
A special flight had earlier taken off from Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh and released cloud-seeding material into moisture-laden clouds above the designated areas.
Delhi residents struggled with breathing difficulties as the national capital recorded ‘very poor’ air quality levels on Tuesday, triggering political blamegame.
Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta shared on social media that the Delhi government and IIT Kanpur signed the MoU for a pilot project to demonstrate and evaluate cloud seeding technology.
This is the first experiment in the country in which drones will be used for cloud seeding for inducing artificial rain.
Scientists of the US-based Climate Engineering Company "Accel1" and officials of the Agriculture Department flew a drone over Ramgarh Dam for 35 minutes. The drone covered a 25-km area to help scientists assess climatic conditions and related data.
The drone, scheduled to conduct the operation, made two attempts till late afternoon but failed to take off successfully.
The cloud seeding flights will commence as soon as favourable weather conditions are observed over targeted zones, said the environment minister.
