Rains here, but BMC still wants seeding

Despite the heavy rainfall in the catchment areas of the seven lakes that supply drinking water to the city for last two days, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is still adamant about going ahead with the cloud seeding on September 1.

According to the civic hydraulic department, the present collective stock stood at 9,36,496 million litres in all seven lakes. In 2011, it was 11,77,754 million litres.

Mumbai requires 12,54,000 million litres supply per year.
"It is true that in the last two days rainfall in the catchment areas has increased up to 47,000 million litres. Still, there is deficit of almost 3 lakh million litres," said Ramesh Bamble, civic hydraulic engineer.

On August 23, the BMC has sought permission from the Union home ministry and civil aviation ministry to carry out cloud seeding.

"The civil aviation ministry has responded asking us to comply with seven to eight points, such as experience of the pilot and crew members, process of cloud seeding. We will try to do so in the next three days," added Bamble.

The home ministry, however, is yet to respond to the correspondence.

"We will not table a proposal for cloud seeding before the civic standing committee, which is scheduled to meet on Wednesday, as we don't have all permissions," said another official from the civic hydraulic department.

The official added that if they would table the proposal and issue the work order, they would have to pay the firm "unnecessarily".

In a related development, the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) has written to the municipal commissioner requesting him to re-think the cloud seeding. The Congress has been opposed to the idea from the start.

"Till Tuesday evening, the lake levels are close to a total 10 lakh million litres. So, the civic administration should re-think the cloud seeding plan before spending Rs20 crore as there is no guarantee of results,'" said Dilip Lande, MNS group leader.

Bamble responded: "If  the lake levels reach up to 11 lakh million litres in the next few days, then only we can re-think the plan."

In August, the Colaba and Santa Cruz weather stations have registered 362mm and 340mm rainfall respectively.

Since June, the Colaba and Santa Cruz weather stations have registered 932mm and 1,266mm rainfall respectively.