MC Daily Monsoon Tracker: 7 states, union territories remain deficient even as rainfall situation improves

Rainfall conditions normal in 17 states

The country's rainfall situation improved further on September 15, as the number of states facing deficient rain reduced to seven from eight during the past week.

For a fortnight now, India has got 7 percent more rain than the average for the season. As many as 17 states have got normal rain and 12 in excess or “large excess”.

Four states in the east and the northeast and three of the nine in the north continue to be rain deficient. A deficient rainfall condition implies that the rainfall is more than 20 percent below normal.

Mizoram and Nagaland have rainfall deficits of 29 percent and 31 percent. Arunachal Pradesh is another northeastern states which hasn't got enough rain this season.  Among the larger states, Bihar has a 26 percent deficit and Punjab 25 percent. Union territories of Chandigarh and Jammu and Kashmir, too, have a shortfall.

Water level in Punjab’s reservoir is 57 percent below their normal storage capacity. For Bihar, the shortfall is 10 percent.

Sowing in these two states has been lower compared to states such as Rajasthan, Gujarat and Karnataka, which have got normal or above normal rain and have higher higher-than-normal reservoir level capacity.

Reservoir level capacity remained unchanged at 18 percent above normal as of September 12, the Central Water Commission data shows.

Water levels in southern India were the highest among all regions at 35 percent followed by western India at 23 percent.

Normal rainfall has ensured a pick-up in kharif acreage. As of September 9, the deficit had shrunk to just 0.3 percent below the five-year average.

On September 9, kharif acreage was 2.2 percent higher at 109.2 million hectares. Paddy sowing was 2 percent above average and coarse cereals 4.3 percent.