New Delhi, June 25
A day after India’s Met office made official the worrisome prediction that monsoon rains would be below normal this year and that the situation may turn out to be most critical in northwest, the Agriculture Ministry on Thursday ruled out any panic-like situation so far as the country’s food grain production was concerned.
Basing hopes on forecasts of good rainfall in July-August for maintaining last year’s agriculture production level, the ministry’s top official- Agriculture Secretary T Nand Kumar- discounted fears of a drought. While the Agriculture Secretary ruled out any adverse impact on kharif crops in southern and central states, he also assured that the northwest region “may still have a very good production with well-distributed rainfall of predicted 81 per cent”.
“The peak period of sowing in all central and southern states is from the last week of June up to July 15. Tamil Nadu and Karnataka have received very good rains and sowing of Kharif crops is in full swing. We need to watch the rainfall in July-August carefully and if it is well distributed in time and space without too many dry spells in between, we will still be able to achieve the agricultural production that we achieved last year,” he said.
On deficient rains in northwestern region comprising Punjab, Haryana, UP and Jammu and Kashmir, he said the region had a high percentage of irrigation ranging between 80 and 90 per cent. “The forecast of 81 per cent rainfall with correction factor of 8 per cent may ultimately lead to rainfall of 90 per cent,” the Agriculture Secretary added after meeting his counterparts from states that have so far not received sufficient rainfall.
The monsoon situation is being monitored at the highest possible level. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh himself is keeping track of its progress and so is Congress chief Sonia Gandhi.
The meeting in the Agriculture Ministry on Thursday reviewed the current situation arising due to delay in monsoon and contingency plan in Andhra Pradesh, Maharshtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh and Uttar Pradesh. The Centre assured states of adequate availability of short-duration seeds that may be required in the case of further delay in monsoon even as it maintained that there was no cause for worry at this moment and monsoon would revive shortly.
Any setback can hit the UPA government food security plans for the 250 million persons living below the poverty line as the northwest- the granary of the country- has been predicted to get only 81 per cent of normal rainfall this year. Experts fear the area under paddy in Punjab may shrink due to delayed monsoon.
The meeting also discussed the availability of water in the reservoirs and it was felt that the water level would go up once the monsoon arrived and water would be available to farmers for irrigation. Almost 60 per cent of the total cultivable area of 140 million hectares is rain fed.
