Even as the weather office today indicated the monsoon would cover whole country in the next three to four days, it is becoming clear that the 12-day hiatus in monsoon’s advance between June 18 and 30 and an overall rainfall deficiency of 16 per cent have not affected kharif sowing.
In fact, in contrast, more acreage has been planted with crops like rice, oilseeds, sugarcane and cotton this year than was the case till the first week of July last year.
Agriculture experts attribute this to timely arrival of the south-west monsoon in the southern states and the cyclone “Phet” which caused copious rainfall in many of the predominantly rainfed tracts, facilitating early and extensive crop planting there.
The monsoon, however, entered a weak phase and stopped advancing from June 18 after covering the eastern region, southern peninsula and some parts of Madhya Pradesh. It came out of this phase on July 1 and has since covered most parts of Madhya Pradesh, all of Gujarat and part of south-east Rajasthan and south Uttar Pradesh till today, according to the India Meteorological Department (IMD).
“The conditions are becoming favourable for further advance of the monsoon into remaining parts of the country during the next three to four days. However, the advance of monsoon over parts of Uttar Pradesh may be feeble,” IMD said today.
According to National Rainfed Area Authority (NRAA) chief J S Samra, the agricultural situation so far is not worrisome. “There will be no cause for concern if the monsoon revives fully in the next five to six days,” he told Business Standard.
A notable aspect of the rainfall so far was that most of the critically drought-prone areas had received above-normal rainfall which facilitated extensive crop seeding. Western Rajasthan, deemed the driest area in the country, received 70 per cent above-normal rainfall till June 30. Areas like Rayalaseema, middle parts of Maharashtra and Jammu and Kashmir have also had excess rainfall till June-end, he pointed out.
Though the country’s key north-western grain bowl of Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh were rain-deficient (20 per cent below normal rainfall), kharif planting had gone on normally in this region, thanks to irrigation facilities, Samra said.
The areas to watch, where the rainfall is both deficient and late, were east Uttar Pradesh, west Madhya Pradesh and east Rajasthan. But with revival of the monsoon, these areas are also expected to get rain soon.
According to the information received by Krishi Bhawan from states till July 2, paddy has been planted in 4.64 million hectares, up marginally from 4.54 million hectares covered under this crop till this date last year. Oilseeds, grown predominantly in rain-dependent areas, have been sown in more than double the acreage covered by this period last year. Sugarcane and cotton, too, have been grown on more acreage, while pulses and jute have been seeded in more or less the same area as last year.
| STRONGLY ROOTED Rainfall in different regions between June 1 and July 1 | ||||
| REGIONS | Rainfall (In mn) | % Departure from normal | ||
| Northwest | 56.3 | -20 | ||
| Central India | 130.9 | -24 | ||
| Northeast | 331.6 | -17 | ||
| South peninsula | 173.1 | 5 | ||
| Whole country (area weighted rainfall) | 145.4 | -16 | ||
| Source: IMD | ||||
| Crop | This year | Last year | Difference | % difference |
| Area sown with different crops till July 2 (in ‘00,000 Hectares) | ||||
| Rice | 46.46 | 45.43 | 1.03 | 2.26 |
| Oilseed | 28.86 | 12.96 | 15.9 | 122.68 |
| Pulses | 5.15 | 5.18 | -0.03 | - |
| Sugarcane | 47.37 | 41.79 | 5.58 | 13.35 |
| Cotton | 43.68 | 29.17 | 14.51 | 49.74 |
| Jute | 7.56 | 6.89 | 0.67 | 9.7 |
| Source: Agriculture ministry | ||||
The rainfall data available with IMD shows 16 per cent deficiency between June 1 and July 1. Central India has experienced the highest waterfall deficit of 24 per cent, closely followed by the Northwest with 20 per cent and the Northeast with 17 per cent deficiency. South peninsula is the only region with 5 per cent above normal rainfall in the first month of the four-month monsoon season (June to September).
Of the country’s 36 meteorological sub-divisions, 22 have received normal or above normal rainfall, while the remaining 14 fall in deficient or scanty rainfall categories.
IMD has projected the season’s overall monsoon rainfall to be 2 per cent above normal this year (with a prediction error of ±4 per cent).
