Bihar, UP, Jharkhand record deficit rains; paddy sowing hit
New Delhi: The south-west monsoon season is entering its final lap with states such as Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Manipur reporting deficit rainfall, which has had a direct impact on the paddy crop in the region, the weather office said.
As of Wednesday, Uttar Pradesh has reported 44 per cent deficit rainfall of the long period average for the monsoon season, followed by Bihar (38 per cent), Jharkhand (27 per cent), Manipur (45 per cent) and Tripura (29 per cent) and Delhi (31 per cent).
Delhi also reported 82 per cent less rains than normal for the month of August. The national capital received just 41.6 mm of rain in August against the normal rainfall of 233.1 mm for the month.
The southwest monsoon season begins on June 1 and extends till September 30.
According to the Agriculture Ministry, as of August 26 farmers had sown paddy on 367.55 lakh hectares of farm land, which is 23.44 lakh hectares less than the acreage achieved for the same period last year.
"The less area coverage under rice mainly recorded in the states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Telangana," the agriculture ministry said.
Earlier this month, the weather office had said that the conditions would become favourable for withdrawal of south-west monsoon in the first week of September, which is at least a fortnight earlier than normal.
According to the weather office, Uttar Pradesh received 332.6 mm rains between June 1 and August 31, against the normal of 593.1 mm for the season. Bihar has received 477.2 mm rainfall against the normal of 775.7 mm, Jharkhand has received 585.6 mm rains against the normal of 798.9 mm. For the country as a whole, monsoon rains were six per cent above normal with states such as Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Telangana reporting excess rains.
Between June 1 and August 31, India had received 743.8 mm rainfall against the normal of 700.7 mm, the weather office said.
