Mumbai:
The Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM) is pulling all stops, including considering cloud seeding to ensure the city has enough water to last a year. Currently, thanks to the poor monsoon, there is enough water to last only a little over 200 days.
The MCGM has approached an Israeli company called Mekorot with a proposal to conduct cloud seeding over Bhatsa and Upper Vaitarna, two key reservoirs which supply water to Mumbai. Mekorot, Israel's national water company, supplies 90 per cent of Israel's drinking water.
A video conference that took place between MCGM and Mekorot officials last week discussed these possibilities at length. Though Rajiv Jalota, Additional Municipal Commissioner, in-charge of Projects denied a comment on record, it is understood that Mekorot would pitch in their own aircraft, men and material for cloud seeding.
However, precedents of cloud seeding do not pose a reassuring picture. In the year 2009, a cloud seeding exercise with budgets exceeding Rs 5 crores, yielded a disappointing 50 mm of rainfall. Mayor Sunil Prabhu told NDTV, "We will be careful not to repeat mistakes from the past, and with this video conferencing, we'll ensure this (attempt) turns a success."
Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar too told reporters in Solapur that the cloud-seeding technique wasn't reliable. "Personally I have tried this process in Baramati three years back but failed miserably. When we followed this process it only rained in a radius of two furlongs and the neighbouring areas got no rain. We don't need this kind of rainfall," Mr Pawar said.
However, even as the MCGM hopes to go ahead with the exercise, it still awaits a feasibility report from the Indian Meteorological Department that will decide the fate of this exercise. V.K. Rajeev, the director of Mumbai's meteorological station is optimistic with weather patterns building up off late. "In the days to come, maybe we can see a monsoon depression coming in the bay (of Bengal) should really help to bring about some rainfall, or cover, at least a part of the rainfall deficit", explained Mr Rajeev.
If earlier precedents are anything to go by, chances that this big budget experiment of the BMC might work are a bit slim. Now that it has begun raining, the tax payer's sentiment is that the BMC might as well wait and pray for a little longer.