The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : TDP picks holes in cloud seeding programme

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jul 22, 2005

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

TDP picks holes in cloud seeding programme

Special Correspondent

Finds no benefit for farmers

HYDERABAD: The Telugu Desam on Thursday alleged that the cloud seeding operations in the State have become "money spinning experiments" with no tangible benefit to farmers.

Addressing a press conference, the TDP MLAs, P. Keshav and P. Sujatha alleged that the operations were not following the standard practices and wanted the Government to make public the views of the experts committee, the results and the agreement with Agni Aviation.

They said the cloud seeding was being done between 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. while experts say that it should be in the night and early morning. Of the 123 days of operations the first 40 crucial days have gone by but nobody knows about the benefits.

Huge amounts were being released in advance without looking at the results. Condemned radars were installed.

The cost of the entire project was inflated to Rs. 23 crores for 123 days while the Telugu Desam took it up at Rs. 1.80 crores for 63 days, they claimed.

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