Rains here but late and not enough

Even as Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar assures that the monsoon situation is ‘‘not a matter of concern’’, the numbers...

Even as Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar assures that the monsoon situation is ‘‘not a matter of concern’’, the numbers tell a different story — initial rainfall is deficient and behind schedule.

The average rainfall in the first two weeks of the monsoon has fallen short by 59 per cent, and in the second week, the deficiency has touched 67 per cent.

The monsoon is also dragging its feet. By now, it should have covered Rajkot and Ahmedabad in Gujarat, Kota in Rajasthan and Allahabad and Varanasi in UP. But by June 17, it inched forward only to the North-East. And there was no upward movement from the positions it covered on June 8 — Panjim in Goa, Chitradurga in Karnataka and Anantapur in Andhra Pradesh.

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The monsoon is likely to advance further into Maharashtra, Orissa, the rest of peninsular India, southern parts of Chhattisgarh and remaining parts of West Bengal in the next week, Met officials said.

In the first two weeks, a major part of the country was practically dry, with the exception of south interior Karnataka, Rayalaseema, Andaman and Nicobar Islands (which had excess rainfall), north interior Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, which received normal rains on a cumulative basis.

Rainfall in the first two weeks of June was scanty in 21 out of 36 meteorological sub-divisions and deficient in 10. The actual cumulative rainfall on a countrywide basis was only 25 mm as against the normal of 61.6 mm.

IMD officials say the situation was better last year. In the first two weeks, 19 sub-divisions received excess rainfall, while six got normal rain. Only one sub-division received scanty rain and 10 had deficient rainfall.