As farmers are in trouble owing to deficient rainfall during the ongoing monsoon, the State Cabinet on Wednesday decided to take up cloud seeding immediately, at an estimated cost of ₹ 30 crore, for 60 days.
Law Minister T.B. Jayachandra, who briefed presspersons after a Cabinet meeting, said Hoysala Project Pvt. Ltd. would take up cloud seeding in three river basins — Cauvery, Malaprabha and Tungabhadra.
As the State failed to receive enough rainfall, the government decided to take up cloud seeding immediately, he said. The S.M. Krishna government went for cloud seeding following severe drought in 2002.
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Two firms participated in the bid and Hoysala Project Pvt. Ltd. bagged the project. The Development Commissioner of the government would monitor the project.
A few days ago, Agriculture Minister Krishna Byre Gowda said a detailed project report was prepared and a committee comprising cloud seeding experts and other experts from the Indian Institute of Science and the Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre had been formed to oversee the process.