FE Editorial Monsoon mantra

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India deposits rice, wheat seeds in Svalbard Vault

: The southwest monsoon, a lifeline for more than 75% of India’s 234 million farmers, has been regionally uneven so far. Looking at the distribution, concerns should be over the final output of key cash crops like cotton, oilseeds, pulses and sugarcane. Though most recent numbers show that total rainfall so far is 6% above-normal for the country as a whole, the gains are concentrated in a few large pockets, especially because of the 77% above normal rains in north west India due to heavy rains in Punjab (100%) Haryana (80%), western UP (86%) and eastern UP (79%). Though good rains in this rich agrarian belt is excellent news, this has to read with the sharp drop in rainfall in southern India (-34%) and central India (-3%). Regions most affected by low rainfall include Marathwada (-65%), north interior Karnataka (-50%), madhya Maharashtra (-41%), Kerala (-41%), Vidharbha (-36%), Telangana (-33%), Rayalseema (-30%), coastal Karnataka (-29%), southern interior Karnataka (-25%), Gujarat region (-24%) and Saurashtra (-22%). Rainfall has also been meagre in Assam and Meghalaya (-28%) and in Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram and Tripura (-21%). Overall the number of meteorological sub-divisions registering deficient or scant rainfall has doubled from 7 last year to 14 in the current year taking their share up to almost 40% of the total number of sub regions, the highest in last four years. Another point to note: storage levels in the reservoirs as on July 11 this year was 38.44 billion cubic meters (bcm) against 56.30 bcm during the same period last year.