New Delhi: The Government has no plan to "invoke artificial rain" though the India Meteorological Department (IMD) has forecast a poor monsoon, Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal said on Monday.
The IMD's operational long-range forecast for the 2006 southwest monsoon season (June-September) was that rainfall over the country as a whole "is likely to be 93 per cent of the long period average (LPA) with a model error of plus/minus five per cent," he said.
"The government has no plans of invoking artificial rain," he said in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha. A member had asked what steps the government was taking for creating artificial rain.
Sibal said estimates also suggested 22 per cent probability of SW monsoons to be deficient (below 90 per cent of LPA).
Sibal said about 40 per cent areas under crops were irrigated while 60 per cent depended on rains and shortfalls would "adversely affect" agriculture production.
"It is however too early to say which states will be affected and how far the price of agricultural products would be affected as spatial and temporal distribution of monsoon rainfall over different regions of the country cannot be predicted with the existing infrastructure of IMD," he said.
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