With the monsoon advancing into Delhi and its adjoining areas today, a day ahead of the normal schedule of June 29, kharif sowing operations are expected to get an impetus in the country's key north-western agricultural belt. |
Crop sowing in the southern peninsula, which has already been covered by the monsoon, is already apace. Last year, the monsoon had set in over Delhi on July 9, almost 10 days behind schedule. |
According to the India Meteorological Department, the south-west monsoon has already covered the bulk of the country barring some parts of Haryana and Rajasthan. The northern limit of the monsoon today passed through Barmer, Jodhpur, Ajmer, Jaipur, Narnaul, Rohtak, Ludhiana and Amritsar. |
The monsoon prediction model used by the National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (NCMRWF) suggests that the conditions are currently favourable for the monsoon to move ahead to the remaining parts of eastern Rajasthan, Haryana, and most part of western Rajasthan in the next 4 to 5 days. The normal date for the south-west monsoon to cover the entire country is July 15. |
Weather expert Akhilesh Gupta of the science and technology ministry told Business Standard that the present rainy spell in the north-western India was the result of an interaction between low-pressure area hovering over the Bay of Bengal and the western disturbance lying over Jammu and Kashmir and adjoining areas. |
While the Bay of Bengal system was loading the easterly winds with moisture, the western disturbance was providing the needed lift to the confluence of these systems to cause rains. |
The pace of further movement of the monsoon towards western Rajasthan would depend on the course taken by the low-pressure area over the Bay of Bengal which has already been transformed into a deep depression in the next two days. Subsequently, the rainfall belt is likely to shift to Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Goa and Gujarat from June 30 onwards. |
Gupta said there were indications of the formation of another low pressure area over the Bay of Bengal around July 5. Though it is too early to talk more about this, but if it developed on the expected lines, it might bring more rainfall in several areas. "The bottom line is that the monsoon current is on now and will remain intact and strong for some more days", Gupta said. |
The information received by the agriculture ministry from states till June 22, indicated that transplanting of rice, the main kharif staple cereal, was in progress in Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Haryana, Karnataka, Kerala, Orissa, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Uttarakhand and West Bengal. |