A good 38 per cent excess rainfall in the past one week and the weather office’s prediction of better-than-normal rainfall in the remaining half of the monsoon season has bolstered the optimism about bumper kharif harvest this year.
Over 64.7 million hectares had been brought under the crop cover by July 22. This is about 5.4 million hectares more compared with 59.3 million hectares planted last year till this date. An overall 1 per cent above-normal rainfall in whole July has facilitated extensive crop sowing even in the traditionally arid tracks of Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra. This has facilitated higher area coverage under rain-dependent, but high priced crops like cotton, pulses and coarse cereals.
Larger plantings and good production prospects may soften the prices of agricultural products, analysts say. Besides, this will help cool down food inflation that has already slipped to single digit, 9.67 per cent, in the week ending July 17. Kharif sowing, which has gathered momentum due to a remarkable revival of the monsoon, is expected to be largely over by the middle of August in most parts of the country.
A spectacular spurt in rainfall in last week or so has helped improve the water stock in most reservoirs which had dipped to worrisome lows. Total water storage in the 81 major reservoirs monitored by the Central Water Commission rose to 40.736 billion cubic metres (BCM) on July 29 from 28.658 BCM a week earlier. The present stock is short of normal by only 19 per cent, against 35 per cent on July 22. This augurs well not only for crop irrigation in the post-monsoon period and the subsequent rabi season but also for hydel power generation as 36 of these 81 reservoirs have power plants attached to them.
The overall deficiency in the cumulative monsoon rainfall, which stood at 16 per cent at the end of June, is down now to less than 5 per cent. All regions of the country, barring the north-east, are currently in the normal rainfall domain. However, the rain deficit in the north-east is worrisome, at 23 per cent. Though crop sowing has not been majorly affected even in parts of the north-east, thanks chiefly to sporadic spells of good rainfall, but most reservoirs in this region have not been adequately replenished. The situation is really discomforting in West Bengal, Jharkhand, Orissa and Tripura where the water level in the dam is rather low. However, the weather office has predicted good showers in many of these areas in the next few days which may improve the situation to an extent.
