Despite the revival of monsoon progress in the last few days after a gap, a huge deficiency in rains this month is unlikely to be bridged. So, sowing activities for several kharif crops is likely to be delayed.
Pushan Sharma, Director, Crisil Intelligence, stated that the delayed progression of the monsoon across western and central India is likely to postpone kharif sowing and transplanting, particularly for paddy, cotton, pulses and key horticultural crops such as onion and tomato. In Maharashtra, just 1% of paddy transplants have been completed, while cotton sowing remains significantly behind the schedule.
“While sowing activity may pick up in the coming weeks with improved monsoon progress, the eventual impact on output will remain highly contingent on the spatial and temporal distribution of rainfall particularly during July and August, which typically contributes 60% – 70% of southwest monsoon rainfall under normal conditions,” Sharma told FE.
The progress of the southwest monsoon remained sluggish with cumulative rainfall being just over 41% below the benchmark long period average (LPA) during June 1–June 25. This is deep in the ‘deficient’ range. In terms of regional distribution, all regions show a serious rainfall deficiency: northwest (-21%), east/north-east (-42%), central India (-57%), and south peninsular (-28%).
Chhattisgarh (-67%), Jharkhand (-63%), Maharashtra (-59%). Madhya Pradesh (-43%) and Odisha (-49%) have received hugely deficient rainfall. Sowing activities have just commenced in these states after they received some rains in the last few days after a break of about two weeks.
Vulnerable Belts
A delayed monsoon could adversely impact kharif crop sowing, with 315 out of 724 districts possibly receiving deficient rains this season, Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said earlier this week. The centre has identified 111 districts as most vulnerable because they have less than 25% irrigation coverage.
“After the recent rains sowing activities of pulses and oilseeds would commence, the crucial aspect will be July monsoon which eventually impact the crop development and yield,” Nitin Kalantri, managing director, Kalantry Food Products, a Latur, Maharashtra based pulses trader and processor, said
Siraj Hussain, former secretary, department of agriculture said that if the rain continues to be deficient, there will be an impact on pulses and oil seeds in Karnataka and Maharashtra. So far, 10% of the total kharif area has been covered by crops including rice, pulses, oilseeds, sugarcane and cotton. The total acreage of all kharif crops remains higher at 11.79 million hectares as of June 22. The India Meteorological Department in its forecast on Thursday said conditions are favourable for the further advance of the southwest monsoon into some more parts of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand during the next 3-4 days.
Drying Catchments
Dams filled up to 26%.
At the pan-India level, dams are less than one-third full (26.37%) with monsoon rains having just revived. According to the Central Water Commission, as of Thursday, water levels in 120 out of 166 dams are lower than the year-ago level. Overall storage in dams at present is over 26% below the previous year’s level, while it is 5.67% higher compared to the last ten years’ average.
With the sluggish monsoon rains especially in Karnataka (-40%), Kerala (-33%) and Telangana (-32%), water levels in the 47 reservoirs in the south have dropped to just 20.76% of their capacities, still much below the previous year’s level.
These dams are yet to replenish adequately while current storage levels are at 14.71% and 13.92% of reservoir capacities in Karnataka and Telangana respectively. This may impact the paddy and pulses sowing if these dams are not filled up in the coming weeks