The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation will be forming a committee comprising civic officials from the hydraulic engineering department, experts from IMD and IIT-B, to scrutinise and choose one among the two bids received from companies to carry out the cloud seeding process.
The decision was taken following a reply received from Indian Institute Of Tropical Meteorology, Pune, to whom it had written seeking technical advice to adopt the technology, in the wake of a water crisis in the city.
"The cloud seeding process can only be carried out by companies which have adequate experience and technical expertise in the job. The committee will decide on a companies in the next two weeks.
Once a company is finalised, we will decide on when to start the process," said Ramesh Bamble, chief hydraulic engineer, BMC.
"After a company is finalised, financial bids will be opened, following which the proposal will be brought to the standing committee," he added. As of now, the amount estimated by the BMC to
carry out the process is Rs15 crore.
If the catchment areas receive sufficient rainfall, the BMC may decide against the process.
Cloud seeding is a process in which rain is induced by spraying hydroscopic particles into rain clouds to stimulate the precipitation process. Agni Aviation, a Bangalore-based firm, had carried out the
process in 2009 at an approximate cost Rs8 crore, but it wasn't a success. In 2012, the BMC had tried to carry out the process once again, but the project was stopped after the catchment areas received
enough rainfall.
As of July 25, the usable water content in the six major lakes supplying water to the city – Modak Sagar, Tansa, Upper Vaitarna, Middle Vaitarna, Bhatsa, Tansa, Vihar and Tulsi – stands at 3,33,427
MLD, as opposed to 11,07,395 MLD recorded the same day in 2013.
As per civic officials, the usable content from upper Vaitarna will last 92 days, while for Bhatsa it's 50 days.
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