Kharif output in 2015 may be better than last year: Ind-Ra

Looking at the total area sown under kharif crops till 4th of this month (99.87 million hectares), the overall kharif output this fiscal is expected to be better than last year, India Ratings and Research (Ind-Ra) today said.
As on September 4, the total area sown under kharif crops is 99.87 mhac, which is 1.93 mhac higher than last year,Ind-Ra said.
But it believes that the dry spell during August and September will be a dampener for the sowing of rabi crop.
Rabi crops benefit a lot from the retained moisture in the soil and the level of water in the major reservoirs across the country.

The water level in the 91 major reservoirs was 92.92 billion cubic metre on September 3, which is 16 per cent lower than that observed in the corresponding period last year as well as average of last 10 years.
For the country as a whole, cumulative rainfall up to September 2, has been 12 below long period average (LPA).

The worst affected is the southern region, as 28 per cent of the districts in Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala received deficient or scanty rainfall.
Further it said a less-than-normal monsoon in general leads to high food inflation.
However, Ind-Ra believes that a number of factors such as efficient food management through timely release of food stocks by the government (open market sale of 22,380 tonne rice and 277,950 tonne wheat till August 2015), limited increase in agricultural support prices.

And lower global food prices discouraging exports have kept cereal prices under check, it said.
Also, the impact of a less-than-normal monsoon on rural consumption would also be less severe than what it used to be a decade ago or earlier due to the rising share of non-agricultural income in the rural income, it pointed out.