With the sluggish progress of monsoon following a late onset over the Kerala coast on June 8, the sowing of kharif crops such as paddy, pulses and oilseeds is likely to be delayed.
According to officials, monsoon is likely to gather pace only after the severe cyclonic storm ‘Biparjoy’ in the Arabian Sea cross between Mandvi in Gujarat and Karachi, Pakistan, near Gujarat’s Jakhau port, on June 15.
Sowing of groundnut, soyabean and tur is likely to be delayed because of the slow progress of the monsoon so far over Gujarat, Maharashtra and parts of Madhya Pradesh.
“Cyclone ‘Biparjoy’ first delayed the monsoon onset over Kerala and is now impeding the advance of the rain-bearing system, preventing it from reaching the interior regions of the peninsula,” according to private weather forecaster Skymet.
Mrutyunjay Mohapatra, director-general, India Meteorological Department (IMD), on Tuesday said heavy to ‘very heavy’ rainfall in excess of 20 centimetres is expected over a few places of Kutch, Devbhumi Dwarka and Jamnagar districts in Gujarat.
He said the seas will remain rough or ‘very rough’ till Wednesday evening and ‘high to phenomenal high’ later till June 15 afternoon. Meanwhile, the IMD has predicted heavy rainfall over Kerala, Saurashtra, Kutch, west Bengal, Sikkim, Assam and Meghalaya over the next couple of days.
The Met department said that extremely heavy rainfall at isolated places was observed on Tuesday over Saurashtra, Kutch, sub-Himalayan West Bengal, Sikkim, Odisha, Assam and south interior Karnataka.
The cumulative monsoon rainfall across the country during June 1–13 has been 55% less than the benchmark. It has also predicted heat wave conditions over Uttar Pradesh, east and north Peninsular India during next 4-5 days.
The IMD in its agri-advisory has urged farmers in south interior Karnataka to undertake sowing of maize, ragi and groundnut wherever rainfall is received. For Andhra Pradesh, it has suggested continuing sowing of rice nurseries of long duration varieties wherever sufficient irrigation is available.
The sowing of kharif crops — paddy, pulses, oilseeds, sugarcane and cotton have commenced, with 7.83 million hectare (MH) sown, which is marginally higher than the year-ago period, as per the data released by the ministry of agriculture last week. Officials said that it’s still early days for crops sowing as average annual coverage under kharif crops is around 109 MH.