MC Daily Monsoon Tracker: India turns back to rainfall surplus after 2 weeks

Country turns rainfall surplus again

India turned rainfall surplus again after a gap of two weeks with the country recording 0.59 percent above-normal rainfall as of July 23, according to data released by the Indian Meteorological Department.

The number of states facing normal rainfall rose to 17, from 15 last week.

Kerala is the only state in the southern peninsula facing a rainfall deficit.

Northwest and east India continue to face worse weather conditions than the rest of the country. Chandigarh experienced over 50 percent deficit, with Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Nagaland experiencing over 40 percent deficit.

In monsoon parlance, a normal is calculated using a long-period average of 30 years for a specific region.

Data released by the ministry of agriculture and farmer welfare showed that paddy, pulses and oilseeds experienced higher acreage as of July 19 from similar period in the previous year. While sowing under coarse cereals was down during this period. Overall sowing was 3.5 percent higher under kharif crops.

The finance minister in her Budget speech on July 23 expanded the mission on pulses and oilseeds to make India self-sufficient.

Uneven rainfall distribution contributed to rise in reservoir deficit to 13 percent as against 10 percent on July 18, according to data released by Central Water Commission.

Andhra Pradesh and Bihar continue to face over 60 percent deficit in capacity.

The government is hoping for a revival of its agricultural sector, which recorded 1.4 percent growth in FY24 compared to 4.7 percent in the previous year, also lower than the 3.7 percent long-term average.