Reported By:
| Edited By: Sandip Sen |Source: DNA |Updated: Jul 18, 2018, 07:15 AM IST
Half of July is over and the monsoon is still weak in several parts of the country. It is also very heavy in certain pockets. But there is no way to make the distribution of rainfall uniform across the country. Forecasts of a normal rainfall across the country does not carry much weight because of intense variation. The excess rainfall areas make news immediately, largely because of flooding or waterlogging while the rain deficient areas make news much later due to drought and crop failure. However informed reports by the metrological departments tell us precisely where we stand today when the monsoon is at a halfway mark. And that is not encouraging.
Skymet weather, in a press release issued on July 15, said that though the monsoon began very well as predicted by IMD in June and remained strong during the first fortnight, it weakened considerably during the later part of June. But more worrying than the June deficit was sporadic heavy rainfall in certain areas and scanty rainfall in other zones. In short, it was 30 to 50 per cent more in certain areas and 20 to 30 per cent less in several areas that caused more worry.
July is the most critical month of the monsoon in India. There was slow progress of the South West Monsoon north of the Vindhyas. Rainclouds did not arrive from the West Coast or the North East to save the situation. The Indo-Gangetic plains that is home to nearly half of India saw scanty rains between July 1 and 15 when the monsoon was 15 per cent to 20 per cent below normal on most days. Depression formed in the Bay of Bengal that would normally bring heavy rains to UP and Bihar veered off to the North East causing deluge in the foothills. Kerala, parts of Maharashtra, the Konkan belt and the North East has shown very heavy rainfall but the inner parts of peninsula India have seen shortfall.
In June 2018, IMD Director General Laxman Singh Rathore had ruled out the possibility of a deficient monsoon. But it turned out that the monsoon changed its plans after it entered the peninsula. An IMD press release a month later showed that rainfall in North West India was 15 per cent more than normal between June 1 to July 4. But it was 9 per cent lower than normal in Central India and 21 per cent below normal in Eastern and North Eastern India raising serious concerns. The monsoon has been weak in June and further weakening in July could be disastrous.
This is not the first time the monsoon has been erratic and patchy across the Indian peninsula. To create a more accurate forecast the IMD has reportedly introduced the dynamic model developed with the help of super computers and tested by the IITM-Pune in addition to the traditional method used by them. However whereas the dynamic model can improve forecasting in the short run of two to four days it cannot do much to forecast long term trends accurately.
The intermittent rainfall in parts of Odisha, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, UP and Bihar has delayed the sowing of paddy in the rice growing states. Cotton sowing has also been affected in Saurashtra and Kutch regions of Gujarat where the acreage has dropped to 0.49 million hectares against 1.27 million hectares a year back due to poor rainfall. Other crops whose sowing has been affected due to delayed monsoon is oilseed and pulses.
The signs of weak monsoon cannot be ignored despite IMD’s assurances. A contingency plan needs to be put in place for combating water shortage, farm output and food prices. The first thing that needs to be looked into is drinking water shortage. Two years ago, the government had to supply water tankers through railways to drought affected areas of Maharashtra. There are more than 200 districts that are reported to have low rainfall this year. Contingency plans for water shortage needs to be looked at afresh in lieu of the districts affected by low rainfall in 2018.
If sowing is delayed then the farmer gets unduly affected. There is not only uncertainty but also delayed cash flow and risk of losses. This can create huge problems in an election year and needs to be attended to quickly without the problem reaching a crisis. Again here only those districts affected by low rainfall needs to be segregated and a plan B for those districts need to be formulated
The after-effects of deficient or delayed monsoon is low acreage and cropping. The after-effects of poor cropping is reduced food grain output and consequent rise in food prices. Here again a lot of work needs to be done.
Thousands of raids against hoarding have been conducted in the past three years and stocks of onions and pulses have been seized. But the hoarders have not been convicted despite the I-T department having collected evidence of cartels operating both in the pulse and the onion trade. All action has been half baked and as a result the trade cartels are still strong. Legal action needs to be taken quickly or these cartels will not miss the next opportunity to strike gold.
The writer is an author and senior journalist. Views are personal.
