In a bold initiative to tackle the capital’s infamous air pollution, Delhi is planning to conduct its inaugural artificial rain event.
On the cards from July 4 to July 11, 2025, this effort will purify the city’s poisonous air by inducing rain via cloud seeding, a process never tried before on this scale in the country.
The initiative is being headed by IIT Kanpur, with the Delhi government and other country agencies joining hands.
This is included in the overall Air Pollution Mitigation Plan 2025, which also entails installing anti-smog guns on high-rise buildings, deploying mist sprayers in pollution areas, and making the use of cleaner fuel like BS-VI, CNG, and electric vehicles compulsory from November.
How Artificial Rain Works
Cloud seeding, or artificial rain, is a method of weather modification for inducing rainfalls. It involves seeding clouds with substances such as silver iodide, potassium iodide, or rock salt.
In the case of Delhi, a Cessna aircraft would release a combination of silver iodide nanoparticles, iodized salt, and rock salt through flares into water-rich clouds.
Once released, these particles serve as cloud condensation or ice nuclei, promoting water vapor within clouds to cluster and become raindrops.
When the clouds are wet enough, these droplets weigh enough to precipitate as rain.
This man-made rain should be able to settle particulate matter and other air pollutants, providing a short-term but much-needed respite from the city’s toxic air.
An Ambitious Flight Plan
IIT Kanpur has filed a comprehensive flight plan with the India Meteorological Department (IMD) and obtained clearance from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).
The plan has five sorties on approximately 100 square kilometers in the northwest and outer Delhi. Low-security airspace has been situated to facilitate the safe conduct of the operation.
Artificial rain will provide temporary respite and valuable insights into scalable weather modification methods, but it will not be a permanent solution to pollution in Delhi.
If the trial succeeds, it could open the way for similar projects in other Indian metropolises suffering from pollution.
Delhi’s artificial rain project, a combination of science and policy, heralds a new chapter in India’s battle against environmental decline, a chapter that equally focuses on urgency, innovation, and technology.
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