Area under sowing for wheat has risen marginally to 161.57 lakh hectares so far in the ongoing Rabi season, while the acreage of pulses and oilseeds is lower than the last year.
"Wheat's sowing area has shown slight improvement and is at 161.57 lakh hectares as compared to last year's 159.11 lakh hectares," an official statement said.
Area under coverage for pulses is at 95.93 lakh hectare so far this rabi (winter sowing) season against 107.06 lakh hectare in the year-ago period.
Similarly, the sowing area of oilseeds is at 65.07 lakh hectare as compared to 70.21 lakh hectare last year.
"As per Rabi crops data released by Directorate of Economics and Statistics, Ministry of Agriculture, total area coverage under Rabi crops moves to 360.94 lakh hectares while last year's sowing area was at 378.92 lakh hectare," the statement said.
Rabi sowing starts from October, while harvesting begins from March. In the rabi conference held in September, the Centre asked the state governments to focus during the rabi season on 3.37 million hectare that was left unsown due to delayed monsoon in the kharif season.
