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Monsoon rains lowest in six years, says govt

Cumulative Indian rainfall in the current monsoon season has been the lowest in the last six years, hitting sowing for most crops including oilseeds and rice, the agriculture ministry said on Thursday.

The June-September southwest monsoon arrived over Kerala in early June and moved to western parts of the country, but its progress in northwestern India where oilseeds and rice are grown has been erratic.

The rains are vital for agriculture which accounts for 25 per cent of the country's gross domestic product and provides employment to 70 per cent of its one billion people.

Agriculture Minister Ajit Singh said on Wednesday that the drought affecting much of the country was the worst in more than a decade. But he said there would be no grain shortages because the country had sufficient stocks.

The worst affected states include Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana and Rajasthan. "At all-India level, 25.03 cms rainfall occurred in the monsoon season-2002 so far against the average rainfall of 33.32 cms," the ministry said in a statement.

ISOLATED RAINS

Eastern parts of the country would receive good amounts of rain but northwestern India including Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Punjab might have only isolated rains until the end of the week, it said.

The area under winter rice so far was 9.72 million hectares compared with 10.23 million hectares in the corresponding period last year. The normal total area is about 40 million hectares.

The area under winter oilseeds was about 7.12 million hectares, compared with 10.5 million this time last year.

"Progress of soybean sowing has been adversely affected due to abnormal weather. Area coverage so far is 3.15 million hectares which is lagging behind by about 2.4 million hectares from last year's coverage in the corresponding period," it said.

The central state of Madhya Pradesh and northwestern Rajasthan, the major soybean growing states, have both been hit by erratic rains.

The ministry said sowing of winter groundnuts too was lagging behind with the area covered so far around 2.83 million hectares, about 600,000 hectares less than last year's coverage in the corresponding period. Groundnut is mainly grown in Gujarat. Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh also grow groundnut.

Morgan Stanley in its latest report has estimated India's winter crops will rise by 0.5 per cent compared with their earlier forecast of 3.5 per cent.

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