Central team to assess impact of rain scarcity in Haryana

As the southwest monsoon continues to be patchy over poll-bound Haryana, the central government has constituted an inter-ministerial team to visit the state over the weekend to assess the impact.

This is the first instance of the Centre sending a fact-finding team to assess signs of drought in the 2014 monsoon season.

Officials in the know said the team, headed by Vasudha Mishra of the National Cooperative Development Council, which works under the department of agriculture, will have representation from the ministries of food, power, finance, water resources and rural development.

“The team will form two separate sub-teams to cover the entire state in two days and will also hold meetings with the state government. Later, it will give its report to the Union ministry of agriculture,” a senior official said.

The southwest monsoon, lifeline of millions of farmers in the country, has shown strong signs of revival from the middle of July, narrowing the overall deficit to 11 per cent as on Friday from a high of over 40 per cent at the end of June.

However, despite the revival, the cumulative rainfall in almost 30 per cent of the country has been deficient this year. Haryana, a major foodgrain grower, has got 54 per cent less rain this year. The state government had declared a drought in the first week of September but this was contested by the Centre, which said it was too early for such a step.

In a related development, data sourced from the department of agriculture showed kharif crops had been sown on 99.91 million hectares as of Friday, 3.6 per cent less than last year.