The southwest monsoon has started withdrawing from northern India, triggering the end of its four-month long journey over the Indian sub-continent starting from June. The rains which in normal circumstances should have started retreating from India during the first week of September stayed an extra 20 days, which should augur well for crop sowing during the coming rabi.
According to the India Meteorological Department (IMD), the monsoon season has ended in Rajasthan, parts of UP, Punjab, Haryana, eastern parts of Madhya Pradesh and also some areas in Himachal Pradesh. “In the coming days rains would retract from more areas,” a senior IMD official said.
He said overall rainfall deficiency in the country at the end of the season this year should be somewhere around 5-6%, in line with their second stage forecast released in June. IMD in its second stage forecast for 2012 southwest monsoon season had predicted that cumulative rainfall across the country would be 91% of Long Period Average (LPA), with a model error of plus and minus 9%.
Rainfall is considered to be normal when it is within 96-104% of the LPA. Long Period Average is the average rainfall across the country during the four-month southwest monsoon season during a 50 year period starting from 1951. It is estimated to be around 89 centimeters.
The met office regards the monsoon to have withdrawn if the following three conditions are met. The first is cessation of rainfall activity for continuous five days or considerable reduction in moisture content and finally establishment of anti-cyclone in the troposphere. The southwest monsoon, which is lifeline for Indian agriculture as less than half of arable land has proper irrigation facilities, has had a rather uneven run in 2012.
It is also important for the general economy as the rains provide almost 70% of the total annual moisture receives during the year. After making a delayed entry into the country, the rains where abnormally low in June and July, the two crucial months in its four-month journey over India.
At the end of July, the overall southwest monsoon was around 20% deficient across the country with northwest India, Karnataka, parts of Gujarat, Maharashtra facing severe drought like conditions. The overall rainfall deficiency in these parts of the country was around 60-80% below normal by end of July.
Click here for graphic.
The patchy performance not only hurt sowing of main kharif crops, but also pulled down the water level in major reservoirs across the country. By end June, water levels in 84 major reservoirs across the country had dipped to almost 16% of Full Reservoirs Level (FRL), which was precariously close to the levels seen during the last big drought of 2009.
The uneven rains impacted the sowing of almost all kharif crops; coarse cereals, pulses and groundnut being the worst hit.
The government’s first advance estimate for 2012-2013 kharif crop marketing season expected foodgrains output to drop by almost 10% this year as compared to last year, with pulses production estimated to fall by 14.6% and coarse cereals output by 18.28%. Oilseeds production is projected to drop by 9.62%.
The loss would have been much higher if the rains had not shown a remarkable recovery from July end.
