Kharif sowing improves with narrowing of rainfall deficit:Govt

With narrowing down of rainfall deficiency across the country, sowing of kharif crops has picked up as total acreage has touched 80.33 million hectares so far, still lower than the year-ago period.
"Good rains in the last 20 days has boosted sowing and the gap in sowing acreage has come down in crops such as coarse cereals, pulses, oilseeds and cotton," a senior Agriculture Ministry official told PTI.
Farmers have sown kharif crops in 80.33 million hectares as on today, which is 93 per cent of the average sowing of last five years but still lower than 88.18 million hectares sown in the year-ago, as per the Agriculture Ministry's data.

The average normal sowing area is 85.7 million hectares.
As on today, rice has been sown in 26.73 million hectares, coarse cereals in 14 million hectares, pulses in 7.6 million hectares, oilseeds in 15.22 million hectares, cotton in 11.2 million hectares and sugarcane in 4.7 million hectares.
The acreage sown to these crops is still lower than the year-ago period because sowing operations got delayed due to late arrival of southwest monsoon.

However there has been a "dramatic change" in sowing situation in the last two weeks as the gap in coverage of these crops has narrowed down with rainfall deficiency coming down to 17 per cent today from 35 per cent on July 17, the official observed.

The total kharif crop sowing deficit has come down to 6 per cent of the last five years average sown area from 40 per cent deficit during 20 days back, the official added.
"If current rainfall situation continues for rest of the season and rainfall deficit comes below 10 per cent. It can no longer be a drought year," the official said.
As per the Met Department, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Odisha, West Bengal, Jharkhand and Maharashtra except for Marathwada have received normal rainfall so far.
The rains deficit has been reported so far in Punjab, Haryana, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, parts of Gujarat and Karnataka, Marathwada in Maharashtra and East Uttar Pradesh.

Good rains has also improved water level in 85 reservoirs across the country. Water level is around 88.7 billion cubic meters, which is 16 per cent above the last 10 years' average, as per the official data.