As Delhi gasps for fresh air amid worsening air quality in the national capital, Environment Minister Gopal Rai on Wednesday said that the city government will attempt to induce artificial rain through cloud seeding in a bid to tackle the pollution menace.
The government’s effort comes as the festival of Diwali draws near while the air quality remained in the “severe” category at almost all the places in the national capital.
Professor at Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, Manindra Agrawal confirmed to news agency ANI that Delhi government has approached them for the purpose of inducing artifical rains in the national capital.
Agrawal said that the approval for the aircraft for cloud seeding has been received from Director General of Civil Aviation and the cloud seeding is being planned in collaboration with the Confederation of Indian Industries.
"IIT Kanpur has its own aircraft in which flares have been attached to do cloud seeding and it has been approved by DGCA. With this, we can do cloud seedings anywhere...We along with CII have been planning on cloud seeding to control pollution in Delhi NCR for the last two months,” Agrawal told ANI.
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The artificial rain will help the suspended pollutants in the air to settle down which would then flow away with water, he said but also flagged that it is a temporary solution and stressed on the action needed to be taken against the sources of pollution.
“CII is active and coordinating with the Delhi government and the Central government...Rain through cloud seeding makes the dust particles settle down and flow with water making the environment clean and pollution-free at that time,” said the IIT professor.
“Until we take action on the pollution sources it will come again,” he added.