The government has conducted a study regarding rain enhancement with the help of modern techniques keeping in view of decreasing year by year rainfall in the country.

This information was given in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha today by the Minister for Earth Sciences Mr.Vayalar Ravi. He said a multi-year research observational campaign entitled–Cloud Aerosol Interaction and Precipitation Enhancement–was conducted by the Pune based Indian Institute of Meteorology during the period 2009-2011 over different parts of the country.

The objectives of the programme are, to understand the role of aerosols in the rainfall processes in the clouds and to carry out cloud seeding experiments in research mode for rain enhancements using modern techniques.

The Minister said factors like global warming and increasing loading of aerosols over India have established potential to modulate and natural rainfall variability to certain extent as a part of short term variability.