Breaking News: Record rains, Indian Monsoon is outstanding, IMD as predicted rainfall is at 100%. These are few headlines that newspapers and media are using to describe Indian Monsoon.
Great, another year of good monsoon is it? I would wait and say not too early!
Because it is not at all what as it looks. Let me explain you it the way it is.
When you see it’s raining for last 2 days at Hyderabad, you would think this year monsoon has been fantastic. When you read in papers that India got 330 millimetres rainfall till now against the normal of 330mm you would feel satisfied that the country as a whole is at normal. But have you seen how it is distributed across the country?
Was it uniform or is there a imbalance? Let’s look at the deficits in region wise and state wise.
India 0%
North India +21%
Western India +4%
South India -8%
Eastern India -12%
One thing is very clear. India is not uniform. North and west have excess rains whereas South and East have less than normal rains.
Now lets see how they are distributed state-wise.
1. Andhra Pradesh +19%
2. Telangana +20%
3. Karnataka -19%
4. Kerala -25%
5. Tamilnadu -17%
6. Maharashtra 0%
7. Gujarat +26%
8. Madhya Pradesh -1%
9. Chattisgarh +1%
10. Orissa +5%
11. West bengal -20%
12. Assam -16%
13. Arunachal Pradesh -13%
14. North east states +5%
15. Bihar -4%
16. Jharkhand -24%
17. Uttar pradesh 0%
18. Uttarakhand +18%
19. Haryana +18%
20. Punjab +19%
21. Himachal Pradesh -4%
22. Jammu Kashmir +60%
23. Rajasthan +30%
Out of 23 states taken, 11 states have more than normal rainfall, 10 states have less than normal rainfall and 2 states have exactly normal rainfall. So, the rainfall is not equally distributed in all states. Some of these states are agrarian states and some are non-agrarian. Overall everything looks balanced but one needs to understand that its like half of the members of the family working, while other half is just wasting their time. That is never good for a family, likewise this is not good for the country. Some of the regions in these states are agriculturally very important. Lets look at the agricultural regions and how it is raining there.
Agriculturally important regions
1. Assam: paddy crop It has a deficit of -16%
2. West bengal: Paddy crop it has a deficit of -20%
3. Bihar: Paddy crop it has a deficit of -4%
4. Jharkhand: Paddy crop it has a deficit of -24%
5. Orissa: Paddy crop has a surplus of +5%
6. Coastal Andhra: Paddy crop has a surplus of +19%
7. Kerala: paddy crop it has a deficit of -25%
8. Maharashtra: Sugarcane and Cotton rainfall is normal at 0%
9. Uttar pradesh: Sugarcane and rice rainfall is normal at 0%
So, 5 out of 7 rice growing states have a deficit rainfall. Only Andhra and Orissa are good. This will affect the rice crop unless there is good rain in coming days.
Agriculturally not important states
1. Rajasthan +30%
2. Jammu kashmir +60%
3. Gujarat +26%
4. North east +5%
5. Tamilnadu -17%
6. Chattisgarh +1%
7. Telangana +20%
Most of the non agricultural states have got plenty of rainfall. That is the sad part. Telangana is not agriculturally important as it does not grow the food crops like rice or wheat in a sizable quantities. The other states are the states where rabi crop is more important and these states are Punjab and MP which grows wheat in winter and Tamilnadu which grows rice in November. so the monsoon is not as it looks. There is a deficit which we are not able to see. So, one needs to see it in the deeper way and understand the data. Let’s hope that the remaining period of monsoon is good and bridges all these gaps.
