The Hindu Business Line : After a dry last week of June

THE last week of June has been a virtual disaster for the south-west monsoon, with the country as a whole recording a rainfall deficiency of 60.4 per cent.

As many as 22 out of 36 meteorological sub-divisions, representing 67 per cent of India's geographical area, received `scanty' precipitation over the week ending June 30, which means the rains were 60 per cent or more below the historical long period average (LPA) for the individual sub-divisions during this period.

Rainfall was `deficient' — shortfall ranging between 20 and 59 per cent — in eight other sub-divisions, accounting for 13 per cent area.

In short, roughly 80 per cent of the country has had very little rains over the last week, with the monsoon being `normal' (deviation being within 19 per cent of LPA on either side) only in the Marathwada, West Rajasthan, Arunachal Pradesh, sub-Himalayan West Bengal and Nagaland-Manipur-Mizoram-Tripura sub-divisions. Jammu and Kashmir, on the other hand, registered `excess' rains, i.e 20 per cent or more higher than the LPA for this week.

What this intense dry spell has done is to significantly alter the overall cumulative picture of the current monsoon season, which technically extends from June 1 to September 30.

Till June 23, the country had received an area-weighted average rainfall amounting to 121.2 per cent of the LPA for this period. Also, rainfall was `excess' in 19 sub-divisions, `normal' in 12 and `deficient' only in five.

But after incorporating the data for the latest week, the overall rainfall for the country during June has dropped to 98.2 per cent of the LPA. That makes it still a `normal' monsoon, though everything now hinges on the raingods not playing truant in July, when the kharif crops already sown enter the crucial vegetative stage.

At the same time, the number of `excess' and `normal' sub-divisions has fallen to nine and 19, respectively, while the `deficient' count has climbed up to eight.

Even in Marathwada, the rainfall is just about normal, at minus 19 per cent. It looks, therefore, that large parts of Andhra Pradesh (barring the coastal districts) and Maharashtra (barring the sugarcane growing western districts) are headed for yet another drought this year.

Officials at the India Meteorological Department (IMD) are, however, confident that the dry spell will soon end, with a low pressure area forming over the Bay of Bengal. "This is likely to move inland and will translate into increased rainfall activity in all areas where the monsoon had already set in. We expect that the monsoon's northern limit (unchanged since June 18) will also cover the rest of the country, especially the north-west plains," they said.