‘Farmers’ Rocket’ for rain to be fired over Saigaon in Yeola

NASHIK: The first experiment of cloud seeding in the city will soon be conducted at Saigaon, Yoela taluka on Saturday or Sunday. Civic officials said that Saigaon was chosen because it has received “only the sight of floating clouds”.
“The cloud seeding experiment will be carried out in Yeola taluka considering the rainfall and other factors in the region.The ISPS had asked us for the place with the lowest rainfall and the least population, and we had suggested Nandgaon and Yeola talukas of the district. The weekend is the scheduled time period of the experiment,” resident deputy collector, Jitendra Kakusthe, said.
“The Nandgaon taluka has received only 7% of rainfall – the lowest in the district. It was the natural choice but ISPS chose Saigaon, which lies on the boundary of Yeola and Nandgaon taluka. The village happens to be the part of the Andarsul circle that has received only 53 mm of rainfall in the beginning and has witnessed clouds only flowing by lately,” Vasanti Mali, sub divisional officer, Nandgaon, said.
According to Abdul Rahman Vanoo, trustee of the organisation, the conditions of the area were quite ideal for the first rocket fired cloud seeding experiment in the country and the first sugar-propelled rocket-fired cloud seeding experiment in Asia.
“The sugar-propelled rocket technology developed by ISPS has been tested in Nagpur and Vaibhav Wadi in the past and now it is time to put the system to use for cloud seeding and rainfall. The success of the technology will empower the local administration to conduct it for the farmers,” Vanoo said.
Terming the technology as ‘Farmers’ Rocket’, Vanoo said that the organisation was ready to train the district administration to carry out the activity themselves for the benefit of the farmers in the future, especially when the rockets were retrievable and could be re-used with molten sugar as fuel.
Vanoo added that the requisite systems will be mobilised to Yeola on Friday and on Saturday or on Sunday the experiment will be conducted after having studied and analysed the meteorological data for the day.
“We need to fire a bunch of rockets in a series to seed the silver iodide in the eye of the clouds to yield the precipitation reaction to induce rainfall. Showers will be expected within 50 minutes of the time of the rocket is fired,” Vanoo added.
A senior official added that the administration had carried out de-silting in the region and if the experiment was successful, the water flowing down would be arrested and would help the farmers. On not choosing Nandgaon for the experiment, the officer said that Nandgaon taluka has hilly regions and forest areas and was avoided considering the forest permissions that could be required.