Weak monsoon: no impact on paddy; cotton, maize hit in Pb

The "deficient" rains had no impact on sowing of paddy -a major Kharif crop- in Punjab and Haryana with sowing season getting over, even as the input cost of paddy growers went up significantly for watering the crop.
Though crop sowing in Haryana almost remained insulated from "weak" monsoon, the sowing of cotton and maize was hit in Punjab in the wake of "lesser" rains.
Punjab, which is a well-irrigated state, has witnessed 60 per cent deficient rains while Haryana observed 57 per cent lesser rains during Kharif sowing season so far, officials said here.
Even as apprehensions were expressed over lesser area coverage under paddy because of "deficient" rains, the area under paddy crossed the targeted area to 28.20 lakh hectares in Punjab.

"Area under paddy has finally reached 28.20 lakh hectares as crop sowing is over now," an official of Punjab Agriculture department said here today.
A target of 26.50 lakh hectares was set for paddy during the current season as the state government had proposed to bring down area by 2 lakh hectares under "water guzzling" crop as part of crop diversification programme. However, that could not take place.

Punjab paddy growers' cost is expected to increase by Rs 6,000 to Rs 7,000 per acre because of "deficient" rains as farmers had to spend extra money on diesel and deepening of tubewells for irrigating paddy in the wake of lesser rains.

In neighbouring Haryana, a total of 11.36 lakh hectares was brought under paddy crop as against target of 11.50 lakh hectares, said an official of Haryana Agriculture department here.
As far as other Kharif crops are concerned, cotton area in Punjab could not reach the targeted mark of 5.20 lakh hectares which will lead to lesser cotton output this year.
"Area under cotton could reach only 4.50 lakh hectares as against target of 5.20 lakh hectares," an official of Punjab Agriculture department said.
Similarly, area under maize, which was being promoted by the Punjab government as an alternate crop to paddy, was also not up to the mark as a total of 1.63 lakh hectares could be brought under it as against the target of 2 lakh hectares.

Farmers were not encouraged to bring more area under maize as they preferred to spend extra money on saving paddy crop which has an assured market, the official said.
However, cotton area in Haryana zoomed to 6.42 lakh hectares, surpassing the target of 6 lakh hectares.
Similarly, area under guar crop in the state also went up to 3.40 lakh hectares against the targeted area of 3 lakh hectares, official said here.
Notably, Punjab government has been pressing for special central assistance of Rs 2,330 crore from the Centre in order to combat "deficient" rain conditions.
Haryana government had sought financial assistance of Rs 850 crore from the Centre.