Overview
- Officials have set a Rs 27 crore budget for a 60-day programme that will use about 200 flying hours and operate daily between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m.
- Three committees—a Monitoring Committee, a Technical Committee with experts from IIT, IISc and the IMD, and a Field Operations and Evaluation Committee—will be formed to guide and assess the campaign.
- Operations will be conducted by the Water Resources Department across the state’s four revenue divisions and will proceed only when suitable clouds are available.
- Past Karnataka attempts recorded an estimated 18–20 percent success rate and officials say a roughly 30 percent success would justify the programme; seeded clouds are expected to affect rain in about a 15-km radius.
- Cloud seeding disperses substances into clouds to try to trigger precipitation, and the government says the drive is focused on securing drinking water for people and livestock while also filling lakes and ponds.