Offering some succor to the government struggling to combat inflation, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) today predicted monsoon rainfall this year to be 99 per cent of the long-period average, boding well for crop output in the ensuing kharif season.
Last year, the country had received 106 per cent of the normal monsoon rainfall though the IMD had predicted 94 per cent rainfall in its long-range forecast issued in April and revised it downwards to 93 per cent in the update issued in June 2007. The key north-western agricultural belt had remained rain deficient in the last monsoon season.
However, the total kharif foodgrain production last year had recorded a quantum jump of over 5 million tonnes, or 4.8 per cent, over the previous year's output.
Good monsoon rainfall this year will go a long way on easing pressure on the supplies of several agricultural commodities whose prices have been on the boil in recent months. These include paddy and maize among the cereals; widely consumed pulses like tur (arhar), and edible oil crops like groundnut, soyabean and sunflower. A sizeable acreage under these kharif crops is rain-dependent.
Announcing the long-range monsoon prediction for 2008, Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal conceded that the new statistical model used by the IMD in predicting monsoon last year had erred in making accurate rainfall projections for the Southern peninsula and the North-Eastern region.
It had proved correct for the rest of the country. The actual rainfall at the end of the monsoon season turned out to be 106 per cent of the normal, against forecast of 94 per cent, due largely to whopping 26 per cent above normal rainfall in the Southern peninsula.
Turning wiser from the past experience, the IMD has used the statistical model for foreseeing rainfall in the Northern and Central regions and a statistical model (under development for past few years) for the South and the North-East. The projections indicated by both the models have been amalgamated to compute the expected rainfall for the country as a whole.
The IMD has also taken into account the long-range monsoon forecasts made by several other Indian and international meteorological organisations. Most of them have projected above normal rainfall in the coming monsoon season (June to September) in most parts of the country.
Going a step further, the IMD has this year revised the criteria for categorisation of monsoon rainfall as normal or deficient. According to the new norms, the rainfall below 90 per cent of the long-period average of 89 cm is deemed deficient; between 90 and 96 per cent below normal; between 96 and 104 per cent normal; between 104 and 110 per cent above normal and above 110 per cent as excessive.
This year's expected rainfall of 99 per cent falls in the normal category while last year's actual rainfall of 106 per cent would be deemed above normal, according to the revised norms.
The IMD will, however, issue an updated version of the forecast in June, when it would also come out with its rainfall predictions for different geographical regions of the country.
Copious rainfall in the ensuing monsoon season is crucial also because the water level in most reservoirs in the country's Northern and Central parts have dwindled to below their last year's corresponding levels due to near absence of post-monsoon and winter rainfall.
Water availability in the reservoirs is critical, especially for the rabi crop sown on irrigation tracts after the kharif season. Wheat is the staple cereal grown on irrigated farms in Rabi season.
