Drought-like situation looms large

It will be raining misery on the country’s farm sector unless there is a significant improvement in rainfall within seven days.

“If it does not rain within seven days, the kharif crop will be severely hit and India will face a drought-like situation,” Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar told DNA on Wednesday.

Worse still, this could hit the country’s economic revival. It is “too early”, though, to come to a conclusion. Things will be “clearer in three to four weeks”, Pawar said. The situation has left the government concerned about the food security bill, on which a group of ministers will meet on Thursday.

The prognosis comes at a time when weather forecasts do not hold out the hope of rain picking up a few days. The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) predicted “subdued monsoon rainfall activity” over central and peninsular India in two to three days.

Only the north-eastern states, West Bengal, Sikkim and parts of the north-western plains would get rain over the next two days, and precipitation would decrease thereafter, the IMD said. Overall, rainfall has been 18% below normal in the country.
US-based World Weather Inc said: “India’s monsoon will continue [to be] unusually weak for two to three weeks, resulting in below-average rainfall over a large part of the nation.”

However, water availability has improved with the rising levels in reservoirs, Pawar said. According to the Central Water Commission, levels in India’s 81 main reservoirs rose to 35% of their capacity in the week to July 30, up from 23% a week earlier and 31% a year ago.

Water in reservoirs also exceeded the 10-year average for July-end, easing worries of a shortfall in hydropower and concerns that winter-sown wheat and rapeseed may not get adequate irrigation. 

Dispelling worries about the shortage of food grains, Pawar said the government has enough stocks of wheat and rice to meet the country’s needs for the next 13 months. The minister appeared confident that India would be able to handle the problem since the country has three crop seasons, and that the next two seasons would cushion the impact of a poor and erratic monsoon.

He said the problem was with the availability of pulses and sugar. The global stocks were running low and prices skyrocketing. India has already lifted half of the world’s stock of 5.5 million tonnes of pulses. The problem with sugar was that despite a bumper crop in Brazil, rains held up crushing and prevented production, causing prices to shoot up.

The government hopes its decision to extend duty-free import of sugar would ease supply concerns. According to reports, India’s sugar deficit is expected to widen in 2009/10 because relatively low cane prices encouraged farmers to switch to other crops, and weak monsoon rains have hit production.