India's June-September monsoon rains could start withdrawing from the north-western region of the country in the next 3-4 days, the weather department said on Tuesday.
The monsoon usually starts withdrawing in the first week of September, but this year it has been delayed by nearly two weeks. “Conditions are becoming favourable for withdrawal of Southwest monsoon from some parts of West Rajasthan (in north-western India) during next 3-4 days,” the India Meteorological Department said.
The monsoon, which delivers 70 per cent of country's annual rainfall, is critical for the country's 263 million farmers and their rice, sugarcane, corn, cotton and soybean crops because nearly half of its farmland lacks irrigation.
The country has so far received 5 per cent lower rainfall than normal in the current monsoon season.
As on Sept. 9, farmers had cultivated summer-sown crops on 105.4 million hectares, up 4.1 per cent from a year ago, farm ministry data showed.
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.