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| The prospects of extensive kharif planting this year have improved further with the monsoon continuing to be benevolent.
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| Already, a much larger area has been covered with the predominantly rain-fed crops of coarse cereals, oilseeds and pulses compared to last year.
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| In fact, more than 98 per cent of the normal area has already been planted with maize, soyabean and sugarcane. The recharging of major reservoirs has also gained momentum with the total water storage surging by 6 per cent in the past one week alone.
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| The current active phase of the Southwest monsoon began around July 24 with a low-pressure area over north Bay of Bengal transforming gradually into a deep depression and crossing on to the mainland along the north Orissa coast.
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| Some more low pressure areas and cyclonic circulations also developed around that time, notably over north Gujarat and east Uttar Pradesh.
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| As a result, the monsoon remained vigorous in tracts adjoining Saurashtra, Kutch and Orissa and active over Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, the bulk of north-western and north-eastern regions, Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh from July 24 onwards.
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| Meteorologists expect this spell to continue for some more days. However, this phase was preceded by relatively subdued monsoon activity during the week ended July 23.
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| The total country-wide rainfall during that week remained about 8 per cent below normal. Twelve of the total 36 meteorological sub-divisions reported deficient rainfall during that week.
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| This had an impact on the cumulative seasonal precipitation figure as well.
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| Total rainfall since June 1, which was about 8 per cent above normal till July 16, dropped to 6 per cent above normal on July 23. The actual precipitation till July 23 is estimated at around 405.9 mm, against the normal of 384 mm.
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| In all, 31 meteorological sub-divisions have received normal or excess precipitation, while five have remained deficient.
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| These are Jammu and Kashmir (-22 per cent), north-interior Karnataka (-27 per cent), south-interior Karnataka (-20 per cent), the Andaman and Nicobar Islands (-29 per cent) and Kerala (-27 per cent).
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| However, the inflow of water in the country's major 71 reservoirs is continuing. According to the Central Water Commission, total water storage in these dams rose to 30.18 billion cubic metres by July 25 from 24.4 bcm a week ago.
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| This level is 26 per cent higher than last year's corresponding position, though still 38 per cent short of the past 10 years' average level.
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| The number of reservoirs reporting no utilisable water has shrunk further with the Sriramsagar reservoir in Andhra Pradesh coming out of this bracket.
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| Only six dams now fall in this category. These include Aliyar in Tamil Nadu, Somasila in Andhra Pradesh, Gandhi Sagar in Madhya Pradesh, Bhima and Jayakwadi in Maharashtra and Balimela in Orissa.
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| Information available with the agriculture ministry shows that the area already brought under oilseed crops has exceeded last year's level by over 2 million hectares and for pulses by over 3.4 million hectares compared to last year.
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| Soyabean alone has gained over 1.3 million hectares. Coarse cereals have so far been planted over 17.4 million hectares, 3.8 million hectares more than last year's corresponding figure of 13.6 million hectares.
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| The sowing of paddy is progressing well throughout the country, with over 12.4 million hectares having already been brought under this crop till July 28.
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| This is about a million hectares more than that in the last season. The total acreage under this crop by the end of the sowing season is anticipated to exceed 40 million hectares.
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| The sowing of sugarcane and jute is reported to be more or less over. The area planted is estimated at 4.2 million hectares, against last year's 4.3 million hectares, and 0.8 million hectares under jute and mesta, against last season's 0.9 million hectares. |
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