New Delhi, May 31
India’s rainfed agriculture sector is expected to receive above-normal rainfall this monsoon season, the Met Office said on Tuesday, adding that bumper agricultural production and inflation are expected to check.
“The average rainfall in this monsoon season is expected to be 103 per cent of the long period average,” Director General of India Meteorological Department Mrityunjay Mohapatra told reporters here.
In April, the IMD had said that the country would receive normal rainfall – 99 per cent of the long period average (LPA), which is the average rainfall received over the 50-year period from 1971-2020. The LPA of the entire country is 87 cms.
Mohapatra said the monsoon core zone – states from Gujarat to Odisha that are dependent on rainfall for agriculture – are set to experience normal rainfall in excess of 106 per cent of the long period average.
He said that central India and south peninsula are likely to receive above normal rainfall, while north-east and north-west regions are likely to receive normal rains.
This is the fourth year in a row that India is likely to experience a normal monsoon. Earlier, normal monsoon was observed in India in 2005-08 and 2010-13.
Mohapatra said that India may see normal monsoon in the near future as the decade of below normal rainfall is about to end.
“We are now moving towards a normal monsoon era,” he said.
Asked about the criticism faced by the IMD for announcing the onset of monsoon in Kerala “early” Mohapatra said the Met Office followed a scientific process to announce the onset and progress of monsoon.
He stressed that 70 per cent of the weather stations in Kerala had reported fairly widespread rainfall and other parameters related to strong westerly winds and cloud formation in the region were met.
Mohapatra said that the current La Nia conditions, which refer to the cooling of the equatorial Pacific, are expected to continue till August and augurs well for monsoon rains in India.
However, the development of the negative Indian Ocean Dipole, which refers to cooler than normal sea surface temperatures in the western Indian Ocean, could result in below-normal rainfall over the extreme southwestern peninsula, including Kerala.
Mohapatra said maximum temperatures in June are likely to remain below normal in most parts of the country except Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh, Uttarakhand and Arunachal Pradesh.