Sowing to improve as monsoon covers whole country

Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Bihar are the only states that experienced excess rainfall, so far.

The northwest region, considered as the food bowl of the country, is expected to get intermittent rains in the next few days, aiding to bridge the current rainfall deficit of 15% (as of July 13) and improve sowing operations.
Monsoon covered the entire country on Tuesday, five days behind normal schedule.

“The southwest monsoon has further advanced into remaining parts of the country including Delhi, remaining parts of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan. Thus, monsoon has covered entire country on July 13, against the normal date of July 8,” India Meteorological Department (IMD) said in a statement.

The earlier normal date for the monsoon to cover the entire country was July 15. But, IMD last year revised its onset date for several areas. On Tuesday, many parts of the National Capital Region received rains following which IMD declared monsoon’s arrival in Delhi.

“Though most parts of the north-west region are irrigated, farmers were waiting for the rains since water levels in most of the reservoirs were lower than normal. A good spell for next one week will spur sowing of paddy and other kharif crops,” said a senior official of the agriculture ministry. Water levels at 8 dams in Rajasthan, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh was at 17% of their total capacities as of July 8, whereas the past ten-year average is 35%.

The overall acreage of summer crops at about 50 million hectares across the country was 10% below last year’s level as of July 9. Paddy acreage was down 9% at 11.5 million hectares. Sowing has been completed in nearly half of the normal area, according to the agriculture ministry.

After two days of delayed onset on June 3 over the Kerala coast, the monsoon covered most parts of the country except northwest India by June 13. Due to the adverse influence of mid-latitude westerly winds further, the advance of monsoon into the remaining parts of northwest India could not be possible. There was no progress of the annual weather event after June 19. However, the moist easterly winds from the Bay of Bengal in the past four days helped in the revival of monsoon, IMD said.

“The delay in monsoon advance was mainly due to no formation of a low-pressure area over the Bay of Bengal and 5-6 western disturbances moved west to east across north India which dominated over the monsoon easterlies,” the weather bureau said.

Meanwhile, monsoon rainfall in the country from June 1 to July 13 was at 26.3 cm, 6% lower than the long period average (LPA) for the period. As many as 17 states and union territories recorded deficient rainfall. Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Bihar are the only states that experienced excess rainfall, so far.