NEW DELHI: A day after Chief Minister Rekha Gupta announced on social media that IIT-Kanpur conducted a successful trial for cloud seeding over the Burari area, the AAP has said that her claim does not look credible.
AAP leader and Burari MLA Sanjeev Jha said on Friday that Gupta’s claim was unbelievable. He asked why the BJP, which is projecting the exercise as historic, carried it out secretly without following the standard operating procedures (SOPs), informing the local MLA or alerting residents.
The Burari MLA said that the chemicals used in such a process, like silver iodide, could harm eyes, skin and lungs of residents and questioned whether their effects were hidden because most residents of Burari, who hail mainly from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, are treated as second-class citizens by the BJP.
Addressing a press conference, Jha said, “On Thursday, Delhi Environment Minister Manjinder Singh Sirsa tweeted a video saying that a successful cloud seeding trial had been conducted in the Burari area. The claim of the success implies that the government carried out cloud seeding.
The BJP minister said that when cloud seeding takes place, it results in rainfall, which we call artificial rain, and this helps control air pollution. I believe that when the government conducts cloud seeding, there must be a standard operating procedure in place. This shouldn’t be done secretly.”
