This Bengali Scientist Created India’s First Artificial Rain!

Long before Delhi turned to aircraft-based cloud seeding to clean its toxic air, a scientist in Kolkata was trying to make rain using hydrogen balloons, chemicals and persistence.

Dr Sudhangshu Kumar Banerji, former Director General of the India Meteorological Department (IMD), spent years chasing a question many dismissed as fanciful: could India find its own way to make rain?

Banerji’s path to meteorology began far from weather stations. He studied mathematics at Presidency College and Calcutta University, earned a doctorate in science, and started his career teaching at Science College before working as physicist C V Raman’s first research assistant at the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science. 

That grounding in rigorous experimentation would later shape his pursuit of artificial rain. 

Building a rain machine

Cloud seeding was still a young field when Banerji turned his attention to it. The technique had been demonstrated in the United States in the late 1940s, when General Electric researchers showed that introducing certain particles into clouds could help trigger precipitation. 

During a visit to the US in the early 1950s, Banerji studied these experiments closely and became convinced that the process could be adapted more affordably in India, without relying on costly aircraft.

Back in Kolkata, he designed a tall glass cloud chamber at the College of Engineering and Technology, Jadavpur, to simulate rainfall under controlled conditions. 

For nearly two years, he ran experiments here, refining a formula involving silver iodide, dry ice, and salt as seeding agents, before moving to open-air field trials.

The balloon that made history over Kolkata

In 1952, Banerji’s team fitted hydrogen-filled balloons with small mechanisms carrying silver iodide vapour, dry ice, and a controlled charge of gunpowder to disperse the seeding material once the balloons reached the clouds. 

Released from the ground over Kolkata during the monsoon, the balloons produced results that stunned even sceptics, with rainfall following the experiments on several attempts.

The method made Banerji one of India’s earliest artificial rain pioneers, working in a field that scientists were still trying to understand across the world.  

A nickname born of near-perfect success

The consistency of his results earned Banerji an affectionate title among peers, “Megh Banerji”, meaning cloud, or rain-bringer, in Bengali. It was not an easy road to that recognition. 

He worked with minimal funding, and his research was, at various points, dismissed as a waste of money. 

Yet his method, which dispersed seeding agents through hydrogen balloons released from the ground, was significant enough that the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research‘s Committee on Atmospheric Research recommended, in 1953, the creation of a dedicated Rain and Cloud Physics Research unit to expand this line of study across India.

That unit went on to run a long-term seeding programme over north India through the late 1950s and 1960s, recording measurable increases in rainfall, a scientific lineage that traces back to early Indian rainmaking experiments, including Banerji’s balloon-based work. 

Why his rainmaking experiments matter 70 years later 

More than seven decades later, India is still experimenting with the science Banerji helped pioneer, though the tools have changed. Cities like Delhi have turned to aircraft-based cloud seeding to combat toxic winter smog, while researchers have also explored the method as a possible solution to the capital’s pollution crisis. 

States such as Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, and Karnataka have run their own seeding programmes to fight drought, prompting continued debate over whether cloud seeding is truly the answer to India’s mounting water and air crises.

The basic idea, of nudging moisture-laden clouds into releasing rain, remains close to the principle Banerji worked with in a Jadavpur laboratory, with limited resources and little institutional faith. 

His story is a reminder that some of India’s most consequential scientific breakthroughs did not begin in well-funded labs, but with one scientist’s stubborn belief that the sky could be persuaded to answer.

Sources:

‘The Indian Scientist Who Made It Rain Using Balloons | Dr S K Banerji‘: by The Better India, Published 2026

‘This man, India’s first artificial rainmaker, made it rain over a city in 1952, much before Delhi artificial rain attempt‘: by DNA India, Published 2 November 2025

‘What is cloud seeding? Is anyone doing cloud seeding in India?‘: by Mongabay India, Published 2 August 2019

‘IIT Kanpur To Create ‘Artificial Rain’ to Clean Delhi’s Toxic Air: What, Why & How‘: by The Better India, Published 22 November 2018

‘India’s First Drone-AI Powered Artificial Rain Experiment Faces Setback In Jaipur‘: by ETV Bharat, Published 12 August 2025

Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: thebetterindia.com