Rains to be above normal this year
India is likely to receive above-average rains in 2019 for the first time in six years as seasonal rainfall continues longer than expected, news agency Reuters reported on Friday.
Though, the excess rainfall has threatened to damage crop in several parts of the country, particularly in states such as Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, the central government is hopeful that the damage isn’t big enough to cause any large scale fall in production.
“The condition of kharif crop is good. In some places, there is crop damage because of excessive rains. Still, we will have bumper production in kharif season, higher than last year,” Rupala told reporters on the sidelines of National Conference on Agriculture — Rabi Campaign.
As many as 12 states have been affected by floods.
However, he said: “The plant growth is good because of rains on regular intervals.” Area sown to summer crops remained flat at 105.41 million hectares so far in the ongoing kharif season of the 2019-20 crop year (July-june). The longer monsoon could also restock reservoirs and help replenish ground water, helping assuage water shortages in pockets of the country of 1.3 billion people.
“Above-average rainfall is very likely. With expectation of heavy rainfall in few pockets in next two weeks, we can cross 104 per cent mark,” news agency Reuters reported quoting an unnamed official with the India Meteorological Department (IMD).
The IMD defines average, or normal, rainfall as between 96 per cent and 104 per cent of a 50-year average of 89 centimeters for the entire four-month monsoon season beginning June. The last time India saw above-average rainfall was in 2013.
The monsoon season in 2019 saw a bleak start with the driest June in five years and a below-average July, suggesting an initial prediction for below-normal rainfall from the country's only private forecaster, Skymet, could come to pass.
The weather department too had said in May that rains this year would amount to 96 per cent of the long-term average.
But August saw heavy rains, floods in some states, and the strong monsoon stretched into this month. Rains usually start to withdraw in the first week of September.
Water levels in India's main reservoirs were at 85% of their storage capacity as on Sept. 19 against 74% a year earlier, government data shows. The average for the past 10 years is 70 per cent.