Delhi’s air-quality index (AQI) drifting in the 350-400 range is not a statistic – it is a lifestyle. For three straight years the capital has been wrapped in a toxic haze so opaque that even sunlight seems to need permission to shine.
Hospitals are reporting rising admissions of women and children with respiratory distress; oncologists are quietly noting lung-cancer among non-smokers.
Physicians now say that breathing Delhi’s air for a day is like smoking about eight to ten cigarettes. And just when our lungs had enough, the government gambled on cloud-seeding.
Delhi cloud-seeding ‘experiment’
On paper it sounded bold: make it rain, wash down the particulate matter, relieve the choking city. Last month, the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (IIT-K)and the Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi launched the city’s first-ever pilot of artificial rain. Environment Minister Manjinder Singh Sirsa called it ‘historic’ after clearing all regulatory obstacles.
Yet, executing cloud-seeding is not like flicking a switch. The trials flew a Cessna aircraft releasing silver iodide and salt particles over north-west Delhi, but encountered atmospheric moisture as low as 10-15 per cent – a far cry from the 50-60 per cent typically required. No measurable rainfall resulted.
In essence, Delhi tried to make clouds rain when they were barely clouds to start with.
Cloud-seeding in Gulf states
Across the Gulf, the United Arab Emirates has run cloud-seeding programmes for years – in some cases sparking street-flooding and filling wadis even in arid desert terrain.
Their motive is to bolster rain to mitigate water scarcity. Delhi, by contrast, is using the same method in winter to clean the air. The difference isn’t just climate – it is strategy.
The UAE’s programme is long-term, science-driven, and engineered for water management. Delhi’s, by contrast, is a seasonal spectacle: when the AQI goes into the ‘very poor’ or ‘severe’ zone, we throw up aircraft and flares, hope for the best, and call it an innovation.
Vehicular pollution in the mix
The narrative always flips straight to fields ablaze after Diwali or fireworks. But what about the 12 million-odd vehicles (and counting) on Delhi’s roads?
A draft 2021 inventory by TERI estimated that about 47 per cent of PM2.5 emissions in Delhi arise from vehicles – roughly 9.6 kilo tons per year out of 20.32 kt.
Another study for October 21-26 found that vehicles contributed 49-53 per cent of Delhi’s own PM2.5 for that week.
In addition, a 2021-22 report placed transport’s share of nitrogen oxide emissions at an astonishing 78 per cent.
And yet the discussion still loops around Diwali fireworks, crop-burning in neighbouring states, and ‘festival pollution’ while the SUV fleet expands, two-wheelers multiply, private-vehicle use remains stubborn, and public transport remains inadequate.
Delhi is adding new vehicles every day. According to one report, about 1 ,800 new vehicles join Delhi’s roads daily.
If air pollution were only a matter of milliseconds of firecrackers, we might tolerate it. But it is the slow rolling of diesel trucks, tailpipes of over-aged two-wheelers, and construction vehicles stuck in traffic. Those are the compounding problems.
Artificial rain, natural excuses
The cloud-seeding trial is more than a technical misfire. It symbolises our preference for miracles rather than measures. The chemical flares did not wash the city clear, but they made headlines.
Meanwhile, vehicles keep emitting, logistics corridors keep choking roads, public transport remains underserved, and old diesel vehicles still puff black clouds.
The crux of the matter is that cloud seeding cannot clear particulate matter that never leaves the street. It is like mopping after the tap has been left running. The real tap is emissions control: older vehicles off the road, large-scale modal shift to public transport and EVs, strong regional coordination on crop-burning and dust.
Until that happens, our Delhi brethren will continue to inhale poison and call it air. The skies will continue unseeded, the clouds unrepentant, and the government, as always, full of hot air.
It appears as though Delhi tried to wash its sins with holy water from the sky, and the clouds just shrugged and turned grey.
