Monsoon distribution fairly satisfactory: IMD DG K J Ramesh

The southwest monsoon officially ended last week with a cumulative deficit of 5 per cent, as against the India Meteorological Department’s (IMD’s) prediction of rains being 98 per cent of the long-period average  (with a model error of plus or minus 4 per cent). IMD Director General K J Ramesh tells Sanjeeb Mukherjee in an interview that the Met department hasn’t got its forecast wrong as the rainfall during the season was within the error range. Edited excerpts:
 
How would you read this year’s southwest monsoon performance vis-à-vis the predictions made?
 
To me, the 5 per cent deficiency