Patchy south west monsoon rains has left Odisha worried with nine out of its 30 districts battling a deficit situation. The deficient rains has taken its toll on key paddy cultivation as the state has managed to achieve paddy sowing in two million hectares of cultivable area by July-end, which is only half of four million hectares targeted for this kharif season.
In Balasore, one of the leading paddy cultivating districts, sowing has been done in only 86,000 hectares, an achievement of only 40.75 per cent. In Bhadrak, it was even worse at 60,000 hectares, 37.03 per cent achievement over mandated acreage of 162,000 hectares.
Similarly, in Keonjhar, the sowing was somewhat better with a coverage area of 105,000 hectares till the end of July this year, of the targeted area of 185,000 hectares.
“Ideally, as per the recommendations of the agriculture department, transplantation ought to be completed by the end of July. But since there was a slight delay in onset of monsoon, we can extend this up to August 10 this year. In some coastal districts like Kendrapara, this can also continue till September,” said R S Gopalan, director (agriculture).
With the exception of Balasore, Keonjhar, Deogarh and Bhadrak, sowing has been more or less normal in all other districts, he informed.
Balasore has faced 55.6 percent deficit in rainfall in the June-July period. As against the anticipated rainfall of 500.2 mm, the district received only 222.2 mm. Bhadrak and Keonjhar also grappled with deficiency of 31.2 per cent and 35.9 per cent respectively in this period. It may be noted that Balasore and Bhadrak rank among the top five rice producing districts in the state.
S N Patra, minister for revenue and disaster management said, “We realize that some districts have marked deficiency in monsoon rains in June-July period. But there is no reason to panic at this stage. We have informed the Centre on the overall monsoon rain scenario and sowing operations in the state.”
Other districts that are wrestling with a deficit situation are Sundergarh (23.8 per cent), Kendrapara (24.1 per cent), Boudh (28.1 per cent), Mayurbhanj (28.1 per cent) and Nuapada (30.4 per cent). The state's overall deficiency stood at 12.2 per cent in the June-July period. Odisha received 459.4 mm of rainfall compared to the expected rainfall of 523.5 mm.
Only seven districts -Cuttack, Malkangiri, Nawarangpur, Gajapati, Khurda. Kalahandi and Kandhamal- have recorded surplus rainfall.
