Month delay may damage kharif crops
There is no sign of the withdrawal of the southwest monsoon till the first week of October, more than a month later than the usual. The long spell of monsoon may damage the ongoing kharif crops.
According to Mrutyunjay Mohapatra, director general of the India Meteorological Department (IMD), the withdrawal of the monsoon, which is already delayed, has been ruled out for at least next 10 days because of unfavourable weather conditions.
The IMD has forecast heavy to very heavy rainfall over Gujarat, Uttarakhand, East Uttar Pradesh and Bihar in next few days. Low pressure area will develop over the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal by Saturday and expected to intensify, said the IMD. Under its influence, the “low” is likely to form over Saurashtra and neighbourhood by Saturday and is likely to become “more marked” during the subsequent two days. This will bring more rain in eastern parts of the country.
According to the IMD, India has recorded 7 per cent excess rainfall so far: 931.6 mm against the normal of 869.4 mm till date. Not only the monsoon withdrawal is likely to delay by a month, but also the weather pattern is showing high activity till very late in the season. This month’s rainfall has intensified over central, southern and western India, causing floods that have swamped cane and rice fields.
In fact in several years in the past decade monsoon retreat started only after September 15-20.
“Rainfall is continuing. Retreat was to begin on September 1. We do not have any indication for retreat to begin in the next five days. We can see that monsoon rains have improved steadily after a weak, delayed start in June and we now believe that overall rainfall this season will be either normal or above normal,” Mohapatra said.
As per latest data of the Agriculture Ministry, 1062.72 lakh hectare has been planted during the current kharif season so far as against the 1063.24 lakh hectare during the same period last year. Rice sowing reported to have declined by 4.58 lakh hectare till date.
