The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Cloud-seeding to be taken up on big scale

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jun 08, 2005

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Cloud-seeding to be taken up on big scale

Special Correspondent

Agni Aviation clinches Rs 23.60-crore deal; radar station to be set up at Anantapur Agni Aviation clinches Rs. 23.60-crore deal; radar station at Anantapur with `attached airport' facility

HYDERABAD: Even as the South-West monsoon is likely to set in over the State in next two to three days, the Government has decided to go in for cloud-seeding operations in a big way this year too.

The operations will commence on June 15 by when the monsoon is expected to cover the entire State over 10 rain-shadow districts for 126 days spanning five months. The districts are Anantapur, Cuddapah, Kurnool, Chittoor, Nellore, Guntur, Nalgonda, Mahabubnagar, Ranga Reddy and Prakasam. The operations will last up to October 10 implying that there will be no coverage of the Northeast monsoon which sets in the State around this time.

Schedule finalised

The decision finalising the working-table for the operations was taken at a meeting on Tuesday at which the Chief Minister, Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy, examined the "gains" achieved last year in reference to the expenditure incurred.

The Minister for Rain-Shadow Area Development, M. Mareppa, later told The Hindu that this year's operations would also be undertaken by the Agni Aviation of Messrs Weather Modification Inc. of the US, for Rs. 23.60 crores.

Hub of activity

For the four Rayalaseema districts, the radar station would be set up at Anantapur itself with the "attached airport" facility for the seeding aircraft at Bangalore and Cuddapah. For the rest of the areas, which are in Telangana, the radar would be set at Ibrahimpatnam. Silver chloride, silver bromide/iodide would be used as seed material this time also to precipitate the clouds.

The Minister said they had decided to establish a permanent radar station for the entire State in the premises of Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University at Hyderabad at a cost of Rs. 10 crores. The Chief Minister would seek the necessary Central permission for this from the Union Science & Technology Minister, Kapil Sibal, during his visit to Delhi on June 28.

Mr. Mareppa said they would undertake "ground-seeding" also this year from hilltops at different places. He hoped that this year's experiment would also be successful citing the rainfall gains made last year.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Andhra Pradesh

News Update

Stories in this Section