As the overall sowing areas under summer crops is up 5.4 per cent so far from year-ago, crops like urad, moong, sesame and bajra have registered higher growth in the on-going season. Paddy, groundnut and maize have reported a decline in acreage.
The total sowing area of summer crops have reached 73.58 lakh hectares (lh) as on Friday,against 69.81 lh in the corresponding period last year, according to weekly update released by the Agriculture Ministry.
Planting of paddy was down 3.8 per cent at 29.80 lh against 30.96 lh planted year-ago. Total area under oilseeds is higher by 3.3 per cent at 11.04 lh from 10.69 lh. Coarse cereals area is up by 5.4 per cent to reach 11.33 lh . Among the coarse cereals, maize area declined by by 3.5 per cent to 6.89 lh from 7.14 lh in the year-ago period.
On the other hand, area under pulses reported an increase of 22.9 per cent to 21.41 lh (17.42 lh), thanks mainly to 21.2 per cent increase in the coverage of moong crop. Planting in moong was at 17.48 lh as of May 13 against 14.43 lh during the corresponding period a year ago. The area under urad reported a 39.9 per cent surge to 3.69 lh (2.64 lh).
The pulses area in major growing states include Madhya Pradesh (8.85 lh), Bihar (2.07 lh), Odisha (2.61 lh), Tamil Nadu (1.95 lh), Uttar Pradesh (1.53 lh), Gujarat (0.96 lh), West Bengal (0.84 lh),Punjab (0.39 lh), Andhra Pradesh (0.35 lh), Chhattisgarh (0.35 lh) and Maharashtra (0.26 lh).
Rainfall and storage levels
Meanwhile, the cumulative rainfall in pre-monsoon season since March 1 is 19 per cent below normal on pan-India basis as on May 13. While the north-west region is deficient by 77 per cent, central India has received 56 per cent lower precipitation so far, compared to the long period average. Only 29 per cent of the geographical areas have received normal or more rains, so far.
According to Central Water Commission data, water levels in 113 reservoirs having irrigation facilities had 36 per cent of their total capacity of 129.76 billion cubic metre (BCM) as on May 12, against 33 per cent year-ago and 26 per cent considered normal during this time.