Taking note of a delayed monsoon, the Centre on Tuesday directed all its concerned ministries, including agriculture and food to prepare contingency plans to meet any eventuality in event of deficient rainfall in the country.
"Today, we had a meeting, it is an advance preparation for those areas were rainfall is less. We looked at the stock of grains and allocations made," Cabinet Secretary B K Chaturvedi said in Delhi.
After holding a meeting with secretaries of key ministries, he said discussions revolved around how best to tackle the situation of deficient monsoon if the need arises.
Agriculture Secretary Radha Singh said the meeting was for stock taking and each ministry was asked to chalk out its action plan as a precautionary measure.
She said others who attended the meeting included secretaries of the departments of food, drinking water, women and child welfare and rural development.
The meeting took place in the backdrop of drought-like conditions prevailing in some parts of the country .
"The situation is alarming in some pockets but revival of monsoon is not very far," one official told PTI. If revival takes place, this deficiency would be wiped out in most of the areas.
From an agricultural point of view, there may be some areas where re-sowing would be needed, which would bring down productivity and increase cost for farmers, officials said.
Vidarbha, Rayalseema and Telengana have been rain deficient by 27 per cent, 46 per cent and 51 per cent respectively, officials said. Rajasthan, western Uttar Pradesh, and western Madhya Pradesh, are also rain deficient at the moment, they said.
The country as a whole has recorded ten per cent deficiency, they said.
