Artificial rain experiment in Solapur in fortnight: Official

Artificial rain experiment will be conducted in Maharashtra's arid Solapur district in the next two weeks under a Ministry of Earth Sciences project, an IITM official said today.

A special aeroplane will seed dark clouds with sodium chloride or calcium chloride as part of the experiment.

To verify the actual rainfall precipitation, there have been 120 rain gauges deployed in the periphery of 200 kms around Solapur, an official of the Pune-based Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) said.

"It (the experiment) is a part of an ongoing project of the Ministry of Earth Sciences which had earlier collected data and came up with the artificial rainfall project," he said.

In 2014-15, the ministry had carried out a detailed cloud mapping drive for the arid region of Maharashtra.

A plane equipped with special cameras was used to take flights on daily basis and would reach up to Solapur-Osmanabad districts.

"Now, the ministry has decided to go ahead and try artificial rainfall over Solapur district," he said.

When asked about utility of the experiment, the official said, "Similar seeding in the clouds will have to be successfully tested in various parts of the country. Once it is done, the government can formulate a plan based on results, and design a programme to undertake artificial rainfall programmes".