Rainfall draws to a close in farm belt

Monsoon Watch

For the country's major north-western agricultural belt, the monsoon season is virtually over.

The weather man has already noticed development of conditions favourable for the withdrawal of the monsoon from this region by next week and there is hardly any chance of more rain till then either. Actually, there has practically been no rain since the end of August.

As the arrival of the monsoon was also delayed -- the whole of July being rainless -- the rainy season was confined merely to four weeks of August in this tract.

Elsewhere, too, large parts of Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka have experienced woefully poor monsoon this year. Apart from the earlier prolonged break in the rains, the dry weather has prevailed again for past two to four weeks in these areas.

However, technically, the monsoon season is not yet over in these states and, hence, revival of rains cannot be ruled out.

But, the meteorologists see little chance of any significant rainfall in the next week or so in most parts of the country, barring pockets in peninsula and the north-east.

Consequently, the crop sowing activity that had picked up in August has slowed down once again.

Except oilseeds and cotton which have gained more acreage this year compared to last year, the sowing of all other crops has lagged behind considerably.

According to the reports received by the agriculture ministry till last week, the shortfall in sowing was 2.0 million hectares in paddy, 3.28 million hectares in coarse cereals, 2.5 million hectares in pulses and 9.3 lakh hectares in sugarcane.

The area planted with cotton, however, was up by 7.7 lakh hectares and oilseeds by 1.88 million hectares. The gains were mainly in soybean (+1.0 million hectares), groundnut (+6.6 lakh hectares) and sunflower (+3.0 lakh hectares).

The standing unirrigated crops in the rain-deficient belts are displaying signs of moisture stress. Farm experts feel that the prospects of a normal harvest in these pockets are rather dim.

The crop situation is the worst in Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh where some crops have already started withering or are on the verge of it. Where the standing crops are normal, another spell of rainfall later this month will be vital for normal production.

The current dry spell has once again pushed up the rural demand for diesel and power for running tubewells. The northern power grid is already under strain due to higher rural demand.

The prospects of hydel power production, too, have been jeopardised though the majority of the country's 71 major water reservoirs have over 50 per cent storage. But 10 dams have between 30 and 50 per cent water and 11 less than even 30 per cent storage. Two dams -- Somasil and Sriramsagar in Andhra Pradesh -- have no utilisable water.

The monsoon rainfall in the entire country in the week ending September 3 was 65 per cent below normal.

This has pushed up the overall rainfall deficiency for the season as a whole to 10 per cent from merely 6 per cent till August 25. The latest estimate is that this deficiency has risen to 11 per cent by today.

Of the total 36 meteorological subdivisions, 24 are normal or above normal and 12 are deficient since the beginning of the season. The major subdivisions having inadequate rainfall include western Rajasthan (-33 per cent), Punjab (-34 per cent), Himachal Pradesh (-41 per cent), western Uttar Pradesh (-36 per cent), Vidharba (-26 per cent), Marathwada (-23 per cent), Telengana (-26 per cent), Rayalaseema (-33 per cent), Tamil Nadu (-31 per cent) and coastal Karnataka (-20 per cent).