Jaipur: The halted trial of cloud seeding at Jaipur’s Jamwa-Ramgarh Dam is likely to start again as the Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has given conditional approval to the private company conducting the trial to fly drones up to 10,000 feet. This was confirmed by state agriculture minister Kirori Lal Meena Tuesday.As the private company had permission to fly drones only up to 400 feet, Meena had met Union civil aviation minister Ram Mohan Naidu to seek his intervention.“I personally met him (Naidu) some days ago and urged him to facilitate this permission. We got this permission some days ago, and the private company is likely to fly the drone and conduct its cloud seeding experiment on Sept 1,” Meena told TOI.Meena added that the trial on Aug 12 was not successful as the permission to fly up to 10,000 feet was not with the private company. “As per civil aviation rules, the height of 10,000 feet and above is considered a red zone for drones. So, for this, DGCA permission is a must. I am sure the private company this time will be successful in the cloud seeding,” Meena said.On Aug 12, thousands of people gathered at Jamwa-Ramgarh Dam to witness the trial, but it faced technical glitches like lost GPS signals and other issues.Now that 20 to 25 days of the monsoon season are left, the drone flying is expected only when there is sizeable cloud formation.According to officials of agriculture department, for cloud seeding, chemicals like sodium chloride are sprayed into the air. “When these chemicals react with the clouds, the moisture present in them turns into droplets, starts becoming heavy, and it starts raining,” explained an officer.Till now, cloud seeding has only been done using planes, but in Rajasthan, it is being done for the first time using drones.
Nod given to fly drones up to 10k feet for cloud seeding: Agri min | Jaipur News
