Due to a weak monsoon and insufficient rains, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh are in the grip of an extended summer this year and with the Meteorological Center forecasting continued dry spell in the days and weeks to come, the woes of the people and the farmers were likely to worsen.
During the one and a half month of southwest monsoon the rainfalls has been much below the normal. Against a normal rainfall of 49 mm in the first week of July, the entire southern peninsula has received only 9.6 mm, Met office said.
People in Hyderabad were reeling under the impact of the continuing hot spell as the temperature was much above normal in the city and other parts of the state. High humidity has also added to the woes of the people. The city was also facing acute water shortages and the demand for the supply through water tankers has reached a new high. Muslim observing fasts were finding the going tough as even drinking water is prohibited.
Indian Meteorological Department in Hyderabad has warned heat wave conditions in parts of Andhra Pradesh and high temperatures in many places in Telangana for another five days.
Unusually high temperatures were causing acute discomfort to the people in Andhra Pradesh where Ongole recorded a high of 41.2 degrees Celsius yesterday. Nalgonda recorded the highest temperature of 38.4 degrees in Telangana.
The prediction by the Met office that even August will see only isolated and below normal rainfall has also added to the worries of the farmers and the government officials as the sowing operations have been were badly hit by the dry spell so far. “Whatever sowing was done, it was dried up because of the lack of rains”, an official said.
There has also been a very meager inflows in the major irrigation projects of Telangana across river Godavari and Krishna. With deficit rainfall the upper riparian states of Maharashtra and Karnataka have not released water from their projects like Babili, Almatti and Narayanpur.