40% rain-deficient, Bihar stares at drought; Nitish Kumar to take call soon

The Bihar chief minister is expected to chair a meeting of a crisis management cell around the end of this month when he might also declare Bihar as 'drought-hit'.

The rainfall situation in a fourth of India, including Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, is in stark contrast to the rest of the country. Overall, the southwest monsoon in 2018 was only two per cent below normal, as of Thursday. 

With the southwest monsoon in Bihar almost 40 per cent below normal till now, the state is set to be formally declared ‘drought-hit’. Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is expected to chair a meeting of a crisis management cell around the end of this month. The declaration might follow, the state’s agriculture minister informed the Vidhana Sabha on Wednesday.  

According to agency reports, the state government has raised the subsidy on diesel to Rs 50 a litre from last year's Rs 35 a litre for farmers. And, cut the rate for power supply from 96p to 75p a unit in rural areas. Expenditure on diesel will go up if rain remains deficient. Farmers would then be dependent wholly on groundwater for watering their crops. In Bihar’s case, mainly paddy and maize. According to government reports, paddy sowing in Bihar is 68 per cent less as compared to the same period last year. 

Of the state’s 38 districts, only five have had normal rain till now. In some districts (Munger, Patna, Rohtas, Sheikhpura, Saran, Vaishali), the southwest monsoon has been more than 70 per cent below normal, shows the latest data from India Meteorological Department. In neighbouring Uttar Pradesh, drought-like conditions prevail in almost 50 of the 75 districts. Only a dozen districts have had more than the normal downpour. Last year, four dozen districts had reported higher than normal downpour, leading to robust sowing under kharif crops. 

Till Wednesday, the districts of Kaushambi, Fatehpur, Mainpuri, Mau, Kushinagar, Chandauli and Chitrakoot had got less than 20 per cent of the normal rainfall. Besides, over two dozen districts have seen only up to 40 per cent of normal rain, badly affecting kharif sowing of major crops, including paddy, pulses and coarse cereals. According to the UP agriculture department, the aggregate area under different kharif crops is 5.85 million hectares, compared to 6.89 mn ha last year, a 17 per cent fall. The worst affected Allahabad, Bareilly, Azamgarh and Varanasi divisions have reported less than 50 per cent sowing as compared to last year. 

So far in UP, only sugarcane has witnessed higher planting, by 288,000 hectares, as compared to last year. This cash crop is normally sown before the advent of the monsoon season.

Bihar and UP, with Jharkhand, Assam and parts of the northeast, comprise the 26 per cent of India’s geographical area that hasn’t got adequate rain so far in the southwest monsoon season. And, the possibility of rain is supposed to reduce from the middle of August, due to the El Niño weather phenomenon.