New Delhi: With the drought looming large
and monsoon rain recording a 22 per cent
deficiency Congress-led UPA government has swung in action as Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday has directed all departments and ministries
to co-ordinate efforts with State Governments to meet any eventuality and
monitor the situation on a weekly basis.
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| With monsoon rain recorded 22 percent deficiency government has chalked out of Contingency Plans |
The statement comes close on the
heels of alarming fact that India is expected to receive less monsoon rains
than predicted earlier.
Earlier, in June weather office had
predicted 96 per cent rains of the long period average with a model error of 14
per cent, a PMO statement said "this is now reportedly likely to be around
the lower end of the range".
As per the Meteorological
Department Gujarat, Haryana, Punjab and West Rajasthan are the worst-hit
regions with monsoon deficiency ranging upto 75 per cent in Saurashtra and
Kutch.
The North East region, North
Bihar and North Bengal have received and are likely to continue to receive
heavy rainfall. The overall figure of 22% deficit can, however, be misleading
as the unevenness of distribution and periodicity of rainfall are also factors
to be taken into account.
The 84 major reservoirs in the
country that are being monitored by the Central Water Commission have now begun
to get filled but the current year storage is still 61 per cent of last year's
storage.
A heartening note is that the
water levels in reservoirs in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan are
more than the ten yearly averages.
As a result of deficient
rainfall, there has been reduction of around eight million hectares in the crop
area sown compared to last year.