A good year ahead

The credibility of the long-range monsoon forecasts issued by the India Meteorological Department may have suffered on account of frequent errors, but the forecast of a normal monsoon this year may help redeem the department's reputation.

For, it seems to have learnt a few lessons from past failures and begun collaborating with other agencies for more reliable crystal-ball gazing. Apart from developing some new statistical models, the department has, in collaboration with the Bangalore-based Indian Institute of Science (IIS), put in place a dynamic prediction programme at its National Climate Centre in Pune.

The seasonal forecast model used here is the one developed by the US National Centre for Environmental Prediction (NCEP). In addition, the Met people have taken into account the monsoon forecasts prepared by Pune's Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Bangalore's IIS and the Ahmedabad-based Space Application Centre.

These organisations have separately projected the likely rainfall during the four-month monsoon season (June to September) at between 95 per cent and 100 per cent of the long-period average of 88 cm for the entire country.

The Met's prediction of 98 per cent rainfall with a model error of plus/minus 5 per cent conforms to this range. Moreover, these projections are more or less corroborated by those made independently by the NCEP of the US and the UK Met Office.

Assuming the monsoon forecast to hold true, the country can look forward to 2005-06 as a year of robust economic growth. If, on the back of a normal monsoon, the agriculture sector can clock 4 per cent plus growth, it would be safe to expect overall economic growth of 7 per cent or more.

There seems little reason why the agriculture sector should not grow to this extent, especially over the last fiscal's meagre growth of 1.1 per cent. A normal monsoon will also help replenish the major water reservoirs which have been drawn down due to last year's low rainfall.

The increased water flow into these dams will augur well not only for agriculture""due to better irrigation water availability""but also for hydel power production, which is crucial for sustaining rapid industrial growth.

Besides, there are countless other benefits of a normal monsoon, including increased availability of water for navigation, industrial and drinking purposes; better green cover and fodder availability for higher livestock and forestry output; and improvement in the overall hydrological cycle.

While looking ahead to all the beneficial results of a good monsoon, it is useful to keep in mind that there are several crucial aspects of the monsoon that the Met people are still to unveil.

These include the distribution of rainfall over time and space, especially rainfall in the agriculturally crucial month of July, and the expected time of onset of rains in different parts of the country.

Some of these aspects will be covered in the forecast update to be issued towards the end of June. The problem with that is then it will be too late to undertake corrective action, should that be needed.