The India Meteorological Department on Monday said the monsoon was currently 10 per cent below normal, just 2 per cent better than its prediction at the beginning of the season. A deficit of more than 10 per cent for the entire June-September period is considered a drought. A strengthening El Nino weather pattern has trimmed rainfall, the IMD said. Private weather forecaster Skymet, however, has kept to its prediction of a normal monsoon. “Two weeks ago, we revised our prediction downwards to 98 per cent. The monsoon has been deficient by 9.75 per cent for a while now, and will continue to be like that for the next 2-3 days. After that, the deficit could reduce,” said G.P. Sharma, vice-president (meteorology) at Skymet.
“We are running our model and will come out with any revisions to our prediction, if needed, by the 20-23rd of this month. But for now we stand by our prediction,” Mr. Sharma added.
Consecutive droughts rare A drought this year as well will mark 2014 and 2015 as rare occasions when India has suffered two years of consecutive droughts. This happened only thrice before since 1900 — in 1904-05, 1965-66 and 1986-87.
“There could be a cause for worry… The effect on agriculture of deficient rainfall two years in a row is much more disastrous — the detrimental effect can be more than double the effect of a single year of deficient rainfall,” former Planning Commission member and economist Abhijit Sen told The Hindu in June when the IMD had first made its prediction of a 12 per cent deficiency in monsoon.
At that time, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had sought to allay fears of higher inflation or grain shortage. “The IMD’s predictions appear to be suggesting that we will be somewhat closer to the normal in South, Central and North-East zones. The slight inadequacy, if at all, is in the North-West and a large part of North-West has substantial irrigation facility also. Assuming that the advance predictions are correct, on account of geographical distribution the impact on foodgrain production may not be very significant,” Mr. Jaitley had said.
