43% rain deficit so far, kharif crops likely to be hit: Centre

India has recorded a 43% rainfall deficit so far this monsoon, raising concerns about how it will hurt the kharif crops, Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said on Tuesday.

To tackle the problem, the Union government has activated contingency plans for vulnerable districts and stepped up monitoring of the advance of monsoon, and crop conditions, Chouhan said.

The Kharif season in India is between June and October. The crops are sown at the beginning of the monsoon and harvested at the end of it.

About 315 districts in the country are likely to have been affected by low monsoon rainfall, Chouhan said after chairing a meeting with state agriculture ministers, district collectors and experts from agricultural and weather agencies.

Of these, 111 districts with irrigation coverage of less than 25% have been classified as high priority, 76 districts with coverage between 25% and 50% as medium priority, and 128 districts with relatively better irrigation facilities as low priority.

The minister said that most of the districts that have been affected by low rainfall are in 12 states: Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Uttar Pradesh.

Chouhan said that India was facing the possibility of a weak monsoon because of El Niño weather conditions, which were already affecting rainfall...

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