Rain recovery encouraging at all-India level: CRISIL Drip index

Overall, the rain recovery over the past few weeks is encouraging at an all-India level since it puts to rest concerns around yet another year of rainfall shortage and the impact on sowing

The southwest  monsoon displayed an unprecedented pick-up, moving from a deficiency of 26 per cent as of June-end to 9 per cent as of July-end, to a surplus of 1 per cent above normal as of mid-August. July and August are the most critical months for agriculture. So while the rain catch-up is beneficial for the kharif crop, ample rains also bode well for the rabi crop, which depends on groundwater. At the same time, rapidly rising storage in reservoirs provides comfort. Still the rain pattern is somewhat skewed, with some regions still facing deficiency and some seeing rains go