​The monsoon's going to be just fine this year

Untimely shower in April is definitely taking a toll on the fresh sows in the northern parts of India. The ravi harvest in North and West India including onions in Maharashtra have been badly affected due to unseasonal rain and storm. However, a recent survey by a private weather forecaster comes as a breather for the farmers. The Skymet conducted survey points out that that the country will receive normal rains during the June-September monsoon season.

As per a news report by The Economic Times, the government's India Meteorological department (IMD) is expected to forecast on the same by April 23. Local authorities use IMD's prediction to decide on their monsoon preparations. However, global forecasters are of opinion that 2015 in Indian agriculture might be largely impacted bby El Nino. El Nino has a history of adversely impacting monsoon rain. In the past decade, 2002, 2004 and 2009 were drought years due to the phenomenon
"2014-15 has become an El Nino year as the Oceanic Nino index has crossed the threshold value of 0.5 for five consecutive times since September 2014 till March end. We expect it to last till May 2015 and thereafter go down, thereby not making any impact on Indian monsoon," GP Sharma, vice-president of meteorology at Skymet told the ET.

Skymet expects a few dry patches in parts of northwest, central and south India but on the whole it is optimistic of normal rains in 2015. In its March forecast it has said that the monsoon rainfall might be 102 per cent of long-period average for the period June to September.
As per the news report in the financial daily, average rainfall over India for June-September would be 89 cm. The long-term average is the average rainfall for the past 50 years. A deviation of up to 4 per cent on both sides is considered as normal. Anything beyond 10 per cent is excess rainfall, or drought.

DS Pai, head of the long range forecast at IMD told the ET, that they were analysing the latest forecast and by April 22-23 come with their first forecast for the Indian monsoon. "We are monitoring data and will not like to comment on El Nino impact at this stage," he said.
More than half of the population in India being directly or indirectly dependent on farms, rain is indispensible element of survival. The ET predicts deficient rains could drive up inflation, especially food inflation, affecting the steps to put the economy back on track. In 2009, the country's worst drought in nearly four decades drove up food inflation to as much as 20 per cent and it took years for it come to bearable levels.
Land preparation and sowing of kharif crops, largely paddy, soyabean, cotton, pulses such as pigeon peas (arhar) and green gram (moong), coarse cereals like bajra and jowar, pick up with the onset of the monsoon in the country.


(Image: Reuters)