'Rain men' may help dry tears

But, weather modification yet to catch up in India

The failure of monsoons rings the death knell for many a farmer with the way farming operations are financed. Though the monsoons are a couple of months away, farmers are now preparing to sow across most of India with crops being largely rain-fed.

In case of a failure of rains, many a farmer who has in the past borrowed at usurious rates to fund his farming operations has been driven to suicide. But this need not be so. While it may not be possible to control the entire weather system, some weather modification techniques can work to our advantage and reduce distress.

While weather modification is a big business in the US, Argentina, Greece, Australia among other countries, it is far from catching up in India. In 2003, when the then chief minister of Karnataka S M Krishna introduced cloud-seeding, it was partially successful. The then Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu then adopted it. But, it was caught up in a political storm and lost favour with politicians.

Cloud-seeding has been part and parcel of Australian farming for the last 40 years, and has proved to be a safe means of weather modification, says Murali Ram, managing director, Indus Aviation. So the fears of cloud seeding causing any adverse impact on the climate may be unfounded.

Last year he offered a rain seeding contract to the Maharashtra government for 90 days (as long as the monsoons) for Rs 14 crore but it did not take off as by the time of the contract it had already begun to rain.

For cloud-seeding silver iodide, which acts as nuclei around which water condenses, is sprayed into the clouds by flying into the clouds or ahead of the clouds. When water condenses around the nuclei it falls as rain in the desired place.

While, cloud seeding has been attempted in India to make rains when they failed, in countries like the US, Argentina, Greece and some others weather modification is of a different kind. "There an attempt is made to check hail from falling as a preemptive strike," said Radhakrishna of Indus Aviation.

In 1946 a General Electric scientist had found that silver iodide caused ice to form. Ice in clouds can cause rain, and the discovery prompted an explosion of cloud seeding in the 50s and 60s. But, the euphoria did not last as miscalculations led to a lot of failures.

Firms like the Weather Modification Inc (WMI) of the US specialise in the procedure with the help of their experts, including meteorologists, and the specific software and radar. They also have experts and software to study the different types of clouds and the precise action to be taken to get the desired results.

Aerial data acquisition and aerial mapping are among the jobs of Indus Aviation. While just a ground survey may not be very accurate, aerial survey allows for a more precise survey of the topography, especially when it comes to construction of buildings and other megastructures. The only hurdle though is that the Survey of India is not in favour of such surveys, says Murali Ram.