‘Paddy acreage down 17% so far in kharif season’

NEW DELHI: The area under coverage for paddy is down 17.4 per cent in the ongoing kharif sowing season due to lesser acreage in Uttar Pradesh, which has received 65 per cent less rains than normal.

However, the sowing area of pulses, coarse cereals and oilseeds are higher by 7-9 per cent.

India is one of the major importers of edible oils and an increase in oilseeds production will help in reducing the imports of cooking oils.

Data from the Ministry of Agriculture showed that as on July 15, the paddy sowing reached 128.50 Lakh Hectares (LH) this kharif season as against 155.53 LH in the corresponding period of the previous year.

Paddy acreage improved in the last one week compared to the previous week. Sowing was down 24 per cent as on July 8. The rains this month will be crucial to compensate for the fall in the acreage of paddy.

India had received 14 per cent excess rainfall than normal for the

season but states such as Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand have witnessed deficient rains. The weather office has forecast a normal monsoon this year.

The rainfall deficiency in Uttar Pradesh was 65 per cent than normal with the state receiving just 77.3 mm of rainfall as against the normal of 220 mm between June 1 and July 15.

In Jharkhand, the rainfall deficiency was 49 per cent while in Bihar it was 42 per cent.

In the case of paddy, the area under coverage is less by 27.03 LH in the current kharif sowing season compared to the yearago period.

Paddy acreage is down in Uttar Pradesh by 8.31 LH, followed by Odisha by 3.61 LH, Chhattisgarh (3.31 LH), Bihar (2.71 LH), Madhya Pradesh (2.62 LH), Telangana (2.20 LH), and Jharkhand (1.91 LH).

As per the data, the paddy acreage is lower in Assam by 0.83 LH, West Bengal (0.74 LH), Andhra Pradesh (0.57 LH), Haryana (0.53 LH), Tripura (0.51 LH), Meghalaya (0.31 LH), Gujarat (0.31 LH), Karnataka (0.17 LH), Uttarakhand (0.05 LH), Kerala (0.03 LH), Mizoram (0.03 LH) and Goa (0.02 LH).

Higher paddy acreage has been reported from Maharashtra by 1.02 LH, followed by Rajasthan 0.75 LH, Manipur (0.30 LH), Nagaland (0.29 LH), Arunachal Pradesh (0.24 LH), J&K (0.13 LH), Tamil Nadu (0.13 LH) and Himachal Pradesh (0.12 LH).