Rain deficit in UP, Bihar, Jharkhand

Tribune News Service

Vibha Sharma

New Delhi, August 26

As the four-month (June-September) monsoon season enters its last phase, key states, including paddy-growing regions, are facing severe rain deficit and continue to lag behind in sowing of the key kharif crop — paddy.

While the country as a whole has received 8 per cent excess rainfall, states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand continue to record deep deficits in the ongoing kharif season along with Nagaland, Manipur and Tripura.

Fate of food scheme hangs in balance

• Experts says a fall in rice production due to drought-like conditions in some regions will decide the future of the Centre’s free food programme — National Food Security Act
• So far, the scheme has been extended six times

Along with an expected decline in wheat stock, apprehensions of a fall in rice production due to drought-like conditions in some parts has brought the focus on the procurement of the kharif season, which will decide the future of the Centre’s free food programme, say experts.

“It remains to be seen if the scheme (5 kg free grain to National Food Security Act beneficiaries), launched in March 2020 during the Covid pandemic, is extended beyond the existing deadline (September 30),” they say.

So far, the scheme has been extended six times, the last being on April 1.

Though meteorologists are predicting rains over deficient parts in coming days, paddy sowing continues to lag, with the area under the key kharif crop recorded at 343.70 lakh hectare, 8.25 per cent lower than in August last year.

Passing through the critical sowing phase, Uttar Pradesh, as to date, is 44 per cent rain deficit, Bihar 41 per cent, Jharkhand 26 per cent and Gangetic West Bengal 27 per cent, according to the IMD’s latest data. Not just Jharkhand, UP, West Bengal and Bihar, rice production is expected to be affected in Punjab and Haryana also due to the “mysterious dwarfing of paddy plants”.

India’s wheat production is projected to have gone down by three per cent to 1,068.4 lakh tonne even though the overall foodgrain production is estimated at a record 3,157.2 lakh tonne in the 2021-22 crop year.

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