Pawar meets PM to discuss poor monsoon situation

NCP chief Sharad Pawar today met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the wake of poor monsoon so far in the country and sought urgent measures to tackle the situation.
According to sources, the former union agriculture minister informed the Prime Minister about the poor rainfall situation in South-Western India, including Maharashtra.
The Prime Minister told Pawar that the government is keeping a close watch on the situation and hopes monsoon to improve from July as predicted by the Met department, sources added.
On June 26, Prime Minister had also held a a meeting with his Cabinet colleagues to review the progress of monsoon.

In the meeting, Met department had briefed that monsoon has been weak but it is likely to "improve substantially" in July and August.
Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh had also said that monsoon is expected to improve after July 7 and assured the government is fully prepared to tackle the situation in case of poor rainfall.

Contingency plans for 500 districts has already been prepared to deal with situation arising out of bad monsoon, the minister added.
The monsoon season rainfall for the country as a whole between June and September is likely to be below normal at 93 per cent of the long period average with a model error of plus/minus four per cent.

According to the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD), the country has received 74.4 mm of rainfall from June 1 to June 25, as compared to normal precipitation of 124.5 mm, which is 40 per cent less.
MET department has said that the monsoon will revive in the first week of July.