As the region’s declining air quality has resulted in a rise in respiratory ailments, India’s Environment Minister Gopal Rai stated on Tuesday that the capital city of Delhi is eager to employ artificial rain to combat air pollution this year.
Every winter, a toxic haze covers the nation’s capital and its suburbs as cold air traps dust, car emissions, and smoke from farm fires in the breadbasket states of Punjab and Haryana. This causes pollution in large areas of northern India.
In 2023, cloud-seeding—the process of creating rain by sprinkling salts on clouds—was also contemplated as a means of reducing pollution, but due to unfavorable weather, the proposal was never implemented.
