The Northern Limit of Monsoon (NLM) continues to pass through Veraval, Surat, Nashik, Wasim, Damoh and sultanpur. The western arm which is passing through Veraval, Surat and Nasik has become stagnant and has not moved for the 11th consecutive day, further raising fears of drought in Central and northwest India.
The cumulative rain deficit in June has widened to 40% on Wednesday, making it only the 12th instance in last 113 years when rainfall deficit has been over 30% in the month. Central India and northwest India are the worst affected with a deficit of 57% and 48% respectively, followed by East India, Northeast India and lastly South India.
This situation has certainly raised concerns among the farmers and the government in particular about the impact of dry spell on food prices and production. Plantation of crops from rice to soyabeans and lentils has been delayed across the country as farmers are not willing to take the risk of sowing seeds in anticipation.
Rainfall likely to revive in July
An estimated 833 million people out of the 1.2 billion population live on agriculture and the sector accounts for 14% of the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP). Monsoon rain is the main source of irrigation for farmers in India as nearly 55% of crop land is rain fed. Therefore, a poor Monsoon will certainly spell gloom for farmers and the country that may see food prices shoot up drastically.
But amidst all this gloom there is hope of revival of Monsoon from the first week of July. The cumulative deficit might get narrowed down to some extent but it is still too early to predict anything.
In April, Skymet had predicted Monsoon to be ‘below normal’ at 94% (error margin of ± 4%) of the Long Period Average (LPA) of 896 mm for the four-month period from June to September.