Delhi cloud seeding trials only experiment to test feasibility: Official

The recent cloud seeding trials in New Delhi were purely an experiment, Ministry of Earth Sciences Secretary M Ravichandran has said, stressing that such tests are essential to assess their feasibility before making them operational.

Such experiments can end in success or failure, he said on Sunday.

Ravichandran was at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology in Pune to attend the 11th WMO Scientific Conference on Weather Modification.

Last month, the Delhi government, in collaboration with IIT Kanpur, conducted cloud seeding trials in parts of the national capital to ease the city's air pollution crisis.

However, the Opposition Congress has criticised the move, saying getting a slight improvement in a limited area for a day or two, as is now being claimed, is a cruel joke.

Responding to a query on the cloud seeding trials, Ravichandran called them purely an experiment and said such experiments tend to have either positive or negative outcomes.

Everybody is trying different things -- universities are trying, some institutes are trying. Only through such experiments and trials will we gain information. That was purely an experiment," he said.

Experiments can have both types of outcomes -- failure or success -- and it does not mean that we should refrain from conducting them, he added.

The official further said that before going operational or semi-operational as far as cloud seeding is concerned, there is a need to understand more about it.

Asked if there should be some policy before conducting such experiments, he said that when somebody comes up with new knowledge and technology, even if it fails, it provides knowledge and information for future research work.

The conference focused on weather modification, with special emphasis on scientific advances, including Artificial Intelligence, in the field, said officials.