AgriNation News Network

Lucknow. 24 July 2018

Uttar Pradesh government has come up with an ambitious plan to bring showers in parched and drought-hit Bundelkhand region through cloud seeding. The Adityanath government had sanctioned funds to the IIT Kanpur in last November for making a project to create artificial rains through cloud seeding.

The state government had also approached Pune-based Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), which had provided similar expertise to the Maharashtra government to create artificial rains in state’s drought-hit areas like Solapur, Satara, Ahmednagar, Sagli etc.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, who has taken special interest in the development of Bundelkhand, had directed the Agriculture and Irrigation department officials to study if the same technology can be used for region, which is hit by drought almost every year for the past many years.

In fact, the project was envisaged in 2008 and a team from Andhra Pradesh had visited parts of Bundelkhand to study the parched areas. A detailed report was submitted to then Mayawati government for implementation of the project in about 50 kms area stretched between Banda and Chitrakoot district.

But it continued to gather dust in the files of subsequent government till Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath took it up again. A senior Agriculture department official told DNA that Rs 20 crore have been allocated for implementing the project on an experiment basis from this year.

“This rain enhancement technology will help increase the water level, filling dams and reservoirs in the parched region to provide irrigation facility to farmers round the year,” said the official.

The project is likely to be implemented in parts of Bundelkhand after the monsoon season is over year and, if successful, will be repeated next year pre-monsoon to enhance the possibility of rainfall in the drought-hit region. A study shows that rainfall increased by 24 per cent in Maharashtra using cloud seeding exercise over the years in the state.

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