While Odisha continued to receive less rainfall, at least 20 districts have registered less than normal rainfall during June, official reports said shere.
According to the Special Relief Commissioner’s Office data, nearly eight districts have been severely hit due to less showers this month recording 39 to 59 per cent shortfall in rain while 13 others have recorded rainfall deficit between 19 per cent and 39 per cent.
Rainfall in Nuapada, Ganjam, Subarnapur, Angul, Nayagarh, Balangir, Nabarangpur and Kalahandi remained severely deficient while Jharsuguda, Sambalpur, Mayurbhanj, Keonjhar, Dhenkanal, Gajapati, Bargarh, Kandhamal. Rayagada, Boudh, Deogarh, Sundargarh and Koraput received deficit rainfall, the data said.
Kalahandi remained the worst hit district with the highest deficit rainfall of 55.7 per cent followed by Nabarangpur at 55.4 per cent and Balangir 52 per cent.
Further, seven districts received normal rainfall between +19 and -19 per cent during the month where as Baleswar and Kendrapara received surplus rainfall of more than 19 per cent during the period, it added.
Baleswar district received the highest rainfall of 268.9 mm during the month whereas Balangir district received the lowest rainfall of 97.3 mm, the data revealed. The block wise distribution of rainfall revealed that of the 314 blocks in the State, 35 received surplus rainfall while only 83 blocks received normal rainfall. A total 196 blocks remained deficit by more than 19 per cent.
Notably, on an average, the State experiences 9.9 rainy days in the month of June while there were 8.1 rainy days during June this year. The State has got average rainfall of 161.1 mm against the long Term Average (lTA) of 216.5 mm thereby registering a deficit of 25.6 per cent this June.