By P.T. Bopanna
Congress-led government in Karnataka headed by chief minister, D.K. Shivakumar (in picture), has started a suicidal cloud-seeding operation on August 24 which could rip apart the landscape of Kodagu in the event of a cloud-burst.
Kodagu district which is the main catchment of the Cuavery river, has suffered major landslides for three years from 2018. There is every possibility of heavy downpour in Kodagu when the cloud seeding exercise is carried out elsewhere in the basin.
The Modi government should immediately withhold permission for cloud-seeding by the Karnataka government.
It looks like the Shivakumar government is spreading panic by resorting to cloud seeding, considering the fact that the KRS water level is nearly 109 feet. Though there may be deficit, there is sufficient water available for drinking water and to meet the statuary requirement of supplying Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu.
Cloud seeding has never been statistically proven to work. For instance, during the S.M. Krishna government, while the cloud seeding was taken up in Dharwad, precipitation occurred around 100 km away in Belgaum. Such uncertainty could be worrying for Kodagu where people are in panic fearing landslides.
The Karnataka sgovernment has given administrative approval for cloud-seeding operations for 60 days at an estimated cost of Rs 28 crore.
The cloud seeding will be executed by Kyathi Climate Modification Consultants. It will run for a 60-day operational period between August and October involving 200 flying hours.
The operations will be conducted under the supervision of Cauvery Neeravari Nigam with scientific/technical assistance from the Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre (KSNDMC).
Instead of wasting money on such environmentally hazardous experiments, the government should concentrate on rain water harvesting, dry land farming, and importantly take steps to protect the forests.
Cloud seeding has never been statistically proven to work. An ecologist at Stanford University says, “I think you can squeeze out a little more snow or rain in some places under some conditions, but that’s quite different from a program claiming to reliably increase precipitation.”
The drought in Karnataka is mainly due to the looting of the forests in the Western Ghats at the instance of ministers in successive governments, including the felling of 50,000 trees a few years ago in Kodagu to put up high power transmission lines to supply power to Kerala.
A minister in the Congress government who is close to the Gandhi family, is said to be the agent for the Kerala timber lobby and played a prominent role in the rejecting of the Kasturirangan report to safeguard the fragile ecology of Western Ghats.