E-Paper
Artificial rains in pipeline for U.P. districts with high AQI
The Supreme Court on Monday directed four states, including Uttar Pradesh, to take steps to bring down air pollution levels.
LUCKNOW: Uttar Pradesh is planning artificial rains or cloud seeding for districts where AQI is high and has spoken to IIT-Kanpur for the same. The discussions were held two days after the Supreme Court asked Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan to curb air pollution.
“IIT has technology, and we have discussed with them to get cloud seeding done for districts in the NCR region where air pollution levels are high. This will be done only if there is enough humidity in the atmosphere and other favorable conditions, the experts of IIT have told,” said Manoj Singh, additional chief secretary forest, environment, and climate change on Thursday.
The Supreme Court on Monday directed four states, including Uttar Pradesh, to take steps to bring down air pollution levels. Cloud seeding or artificial rains are weather modification technologies used to improve clouds’ capacity to produce rains or snow. The national capital is planning the same with IIT-Kanpur.
“In our state, the favourable conditions shall be around November 20. If we need, we may go ahead with artificial rains to bring down air pollution, in case it remains high at that point in time. We are preparing the other formalities and negotiations with the IIT on the charges/fee they shall take for the job,” said Singh.
Officials said IIT charges ₹75 lakh for a city to do artificial rains, but further negotiations will be done when the plan is executed.
Artificial rains are said to be effective in bringing down the air pollution levels that are raised due to suspended particles in the air PM 10 and PM 2.5. Experts said that the impact of artificial rains shall remain for over a week depending upon the effect from pollution-causing activities, including stubble burning, transport movement, and construction activity.
Cloud seeding can be done from ground-based generators, aircraft, or drones. When storm systems move through cloud seeding project areas, a solution containing a required quantity of silver iodide is burned from ground-based generators or released from aircraft, stimulating the formation of raindrops.
In the NCR region, Meerut has the current AQI according to the official data of 364 and falls in the very poor category, Ghaziabad has an AQI of 405 and was rated in the severe category, Bulandshahr AQI was recorded 199 under the moderate category, Hapur 320 very poor category, and Muzaffarnagar recorded an AQI at 281 and was rated poor category in the NCR region where cloud seeding is proposed based upon the air pollution levels.
