Hubballi: Cloud seeding has brought some cheer among drought hit farmers here, who are hoping it will help them save some of their kharif crop.
Despite the monsoon reviving over many parts of North Karnataka as forecast by the meteorological department, Rural Development Minister, H K Patil continued to claim that cloud-seeding had brought most of the rain to the region. The government intensified the operation by deploying a second plane on Friday besides the Beechcraft King aircraft that has been carrying it out. Both aircraft are using information provided by the cloud monitoring radar centre set up in Gadag. The operation conducted over the last fortnight will continue for another 45 days.
In Hubballi-Dharwad the rain was so heavy that it inundated many low-lying areas , bunds built on farms breached in many villages in Kundagol taluk and the Benne Halla stream in Navalgund taluk overflowed. Flooding held up traffic in the twin cities of Hubballi- Dharwad and in several towns. Houses collapsed in a few villages of Mundaragi taluk and several trees came crashing down in parts of Uttar Kannada district.
The Karnataka State Disaster Management Centre recorded upto 110mm of rain in several villages and cities where Project Varshadhare has been underway for the last one week. Several villages in Jamkhandi taluk and Bilagi town in Bagalkot received around 30 mm rain.
"The state government has done the right thing by adopting a scientific approach to inducing rain instead of performing poojas in temples and donkey marriages. There are reports of good rainfall in all places where cloud -seeding has been done and farmers are also happy. We will step up our efforts in the days to come," Mr Patil said.
