On Saturday, a radar installed at GKVK campus in Bengaluru spotted ‘seedable’ clouds hovering around the drought-hit Kunigal and Gubbi areas of Tumakuru district. The aircraft, which had been circling the skies as part of cloud seeding, attempted to approach when their permission for flight was denied by the Air Traffic Controller (ATC) of the Kempegowda International Airport, which was coordinating passenger flights entering and exiting the busy airport.
With three airports dotting the city’s landscape, and no-go defence corridors criss-crossing the skies, those in charge of Project Varshadhari — the government’s ambitious cloud-seeding programme — are finding it difficult to chase the clouds. On Saturday, with the clouds at Tumakuru district off-limits, seeding was done in Bengaluru Urban district instead. On Friday too, the plan to chase “good, seedable” clouds at Hassan and Chikkamagaluru — both of which are important catchment areas for river Cauvery — was scuttled owing to lack of permission from defence authorities.
While the cloud seeding aircraft takes off from Jakkur Aerodrome, authorities need permission from the HAL Airport, Air Force base at Yelahanka as well as KIAL.
“Each ATC has its scheduled and unscheduled flights and they prioritise their operations. It becomes difficult for our plane to seed clouds. The only solution is for the State government and the three airport representatives to meet and chalk out a solution for the problem,” said G.S. Bhat from the Centre for Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, and head of technical committee on the project.
From one “practical difficulty” to another, the ₹35-crore project is still struggling to fully take shape. Officials of the Rural Development and Panchayat Raj (RDPR), which is coordinating the project, have planned a coordination meeting between contractors, officials and representatives of ATCs on Tuesday.
“We hope to explain the process of cloud seeding and come to an understanding. Often, seedable clouds are told to the pilots during their flight itself. And, cloud formation is so dynamic that it can last just a couple of hours before it dissipates. As we can’t predict where the operations will be done over the week, we hope to work with the schedule given by other ATCs,” said H.P. Prakash Kumar, chief engineer, RDPR, and in-charge of the operation.
Even since the first cloud seeding operation took off on August 21, much of the operation has focused on the outskirts of Bengaluru, with just one sortie covering key catchment areas of the Cauvery basin in Hassan and Mysuru districts. The movement of the aircraft, which fires flares close to clouds, has been restrained owing to lack of permissions from various airports here.
Dogged by delays
The project, conceived to enhance rainfall in rain-deficient basins, has already been dogged by numerous delays. Cloud-monitoring radars, which are key to the operations to gauge cloud density and movement, were stuck with customs at KIAL as confusions over GST arose.
Seeding in other key basins of Malaprabha and Tungabhadra was yet to take off as the radars were yet to be set up. Officials said a radar in Gadag was in the process of calibration and is expected to be operational only on Tuesday, while another at Shorapur (Yadgir district) is still being erected and may be done only by the end of the week.
Many experts have feared that the delays will dent the efficiency of the programme. However, H.P. Prakash Kumar, chief engineer, RDPR, and in-charge of the operation, said there was a hope for good cloud formation through September and even in October if cyclonic depressions in the Bay Of Bengal take shape.
Encouraging signs
While the monitoring and advisory committee is yet to quantify the amount of rainfall primarily owing to cloud seeding, officials said the few times cloud seeding was done it showed “encouraging” signs.
Till now, only data from the cloud seeding operations on August 23, which covered five places in Ramanagaram, Nelamangala and Mandya district, has been analysed, and signs have shown “significant rainfall”, said G.S. Bhat from the Centre for Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, and head of the committee for the project.
“It is only through comparison of seeded and non-seeded areas will we know the exact quantum of rainfall owing to cloud seeding. However, the data so far has been encouraging,” he said.
