JOIN USIn the middle of sowing season, large swaths of central and northern India are staring at a rain deficient situation, as the monsoon continued to play truant with farmers, who are hoping against hope for showers to save the standing crops.
The seasonal deficiency for the country as a whole stands at 43 per cent as on Friday.
But central India is witnessing 61 per cent shortfall in monsoon rain followed by northwest India where the shortage is 55 per cent, the Indian Meteorological Department says in a statement.
Though they too are in the negative, eastern India and the peninsula fared better.
The weathermen did not offer any hope for the coming days as above normal rainfall was forecast only for the west coast, north eastern states and northern parts of the peninsula. Delhi is likely to reel under heat wave conditions for the next three days.
Rain deficit also means fast depletion of ground water. The amount of water available in 85 important reservoirs raises a red flag. “The storage position during current year is less than storage position of last year and also less than the average storage of last 10 years,” said a spokesperson from the Central Water Resources Ministry. Except Punjab, Himachal and Chhattishgarh, almost all states have lesser storage in the reservoirs compared to the corresponding period last year. South India is the worst hit region where the total storage available in these reservoirs is 12 per cent of their total storage capacity.