Granary states receive scanty rain this monsoon

Haryana and parts of Uttar Pradesh, considered among the granaries of the country, have received scanty rainfall and the weather office has declared monsoon rains this season would be lesser than expected.

Three of the 36 sub-divisions -- West Uttar Pradesh; Haryana, Chandigarh and Delhi; and Telengana -- got scanty rains with deficiency of 67 per cent, 64 per cent and 60 per cent respectively.

The country as a whole received 28 per cent less rains than the long period average  of 89 cm. The LPA is average rains received across the country over a 50 year period from 1941.

In an unprecendented update to its forecast, the India Meteorological Department downgraded its predictions by six per cent to 87 per cent of the LPA.

Usually, the IMD issue two forecasts -- first in April, followed by an update in late June.

In April, the IMD had forecast near normal monsoons with country getting 96 per cent rains of the LPA. It had downgraded the prediction to 93 per cent of LPA in June.

"The prolonged dry spell in August has been distressing. We have revised our forecast to 87 per cent with a model error of four per cent," IMD Director General Ajit Tyagi said.

He said monsoon was expected to revive again over the weekend but it was highly unlikely for the August rains to wipe off the deficit.

Out of the 36 meteorological sub-divisions, the cumulative rainfall during June one and August nine has been excess or normal in nine sub-divisions, deficient in 24 and scanty in three.

The IMD had forecast normal rains in August, which was expected to wipe off the monsoon deficit accumulated over June and July. However, with rains playing truant the weather office shaved off its forecast by 11 per cent.

"In view of prevailing rainfall scenario and inputs from statistical and numerical weather prediction models based on latest data, forecast of rainfall during the month of August is revised to 90 per cent(+/- 9 per cent) of normal against earlier forecast of 101 per cent," an IMD official said.

As per available figures, northwest India received 42 per cent deficient rains, followed by northeast (-36 per cent), south peninsula (-22 per cent) and Central India (-19 per cent).

Image: A man walks through the parched banks of Sukhana Lake in Chandigarh. | Photograph: Ajay Verma/Reuters