Monsoon to cover country by June-end

Delhi, western Uttar Pradesh and parts of Rajasthan will receive very good showers from Sunday, says IMD

The southwest monsoon, after making a delayed entry, has made steady progress and is set to cover the entire country by the end of this month, barring a few pockets in west Rajasthan, west Haryana and Kutch bordering Pakistan, senior meteorologists said.

It reached Gujarat on Wednesday and covered parts of south Gujarat and Saurashtra region.

This should augur well for the sowing of kharif crops; sowing pace had dropped below last year's level mainly due to the delayed onset of the monsoon. The rains would also fill up the major reservoirs, where the levels according to the previous update had dropped to only 15 per cent of full capacity. The situation was particularly bad in the water reservoirs of central and western India.

"The southwest monsoon has covered almost all parts of Bihar, eastern India and reached Lucknow, and by the end of this month will cover most parts of country except for external western Rajasthan and some areas in Kutch bordering Pakistan," said Mahesh Palawat, chief meteorologist of Skymet Weather Services.

He said in two-three days, a cyclonic circulation developing over the Bay of Bengal would strengthen and push the monsoon further inside the country.

Rains in the first 20 days of the 2016 southwest monsoon season were around 20 per cent less than normal. Met department officials said by the end of June, this deficit would narrow to 10-15 per cent and would continue to go down as the downpour in July, August and September was expected to be more than normal.

Delhi, western Uttar Pradesh and parts of Rajasthan would receive very good showers from Sunday, which could also signal the onset of the monsoon in these parts of the country. "The rains have entered a brief lull over central India and not much activity is seen in the next one-two days. But, thereafter, a strong push will come which will help it to cover almost 90-95 per cent of the country by the end of this month," D S Pai, director of Long Range Forecasting in Indian Meteorological Department (IMD), told Business Standard.

He said the southwest monsoon was organising well and its spread, distribution and progress so far has been fairly satisfactory. The Met department had in its second forecast for 2016 retained its above-normal prediction of 106 per cent of the long period average (LPA), with heavy rains expected over northwest, central and south peninsular India. If the forecast comes true, India might get its heaviest monsoon rainfall since 1994.

IMD said rains in July and August were expected to be normal at 107 per cent of the LPA and 104 per cent of the LPA, respectively. The forecast comes with a model error of plus or minus nine per cent. Private weather forecaster Skymet, too, gave an above-normal forecast for the 2016 monsoon.

India's agriculture growth in the first two years of the Narendra Modi government had averaged 1.6 per cent due to back-to-back droughts in 2014 and 2015, the fourth such instance in about 100 years. The drought had impacted more than 10 states leading to widespread water scarcity. However, with the monsoon's progress so far being largely on track, much of these worries should dissipate, at least for the time being.