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As the southwest monsoon makes a laboured progress across several parts of the country, the Union government on Tuesday reviewed preparedness of nine major states to face uncertain rains, and directed them to send their action plan in a week.
Officials in the know said states have also been directed to form district and state-level monitoring teams immediately to assess crop sowing patterns and appraise the Centre on a regular basis.
Senior officials from Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, West Bengal, Assam and Jharkhand participated in the first such meeting. Representatives from remaining states will appraise the Centre about their drought and low-rainfall preparedness in the next couple of days.
"First we have assessed the drought preparedness of the northern and eastern states, where southwest monsoon is expected to be lowest and where maximum number of districts is vulnerable," a senior official who participated in the meeting said. He said of the 500 districts for which contingency plan has been readied, more than half are more vulnerable and special care is being taken of them.
Till date, the southwest monsoon has covered just the north-eastern states and parts of southern India and is delayed by almost a 7-10 days in most other places. The Met department, in its second stage forecast for this year's monsoon issued a few days after the onset (on June 9), estimated the rain at 93 per cent of the 50-year average from 1950 (termed LPA, the long period average), lower than the 95 per cent it had projected in April -- both considered sub-normal. The forecast is with a model error of plus and minus four per cent. Except for the northeast, every other part of the country is expected to receive less than normal rain, IMD said, with the northwest states likely to be the worst hit. Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan are the main states in north-west India.
"For Punjab, where almost 98 per cent of the arable land is irrigated and hence less-prone to drought, we have advised the state government to desist farmers from sowing long-duration rice varieties and also go for large-scale diversification. For UP, we have directed the state government to arrange for adequate power to farmers and also give the Centre a detailed requirement of diesel subsidy," the official said.
He said in Bihar and Jharkhand, too, the Centre has advised states to identify areas where diesel subsidy would be required.
