Delayed monsoon worries Indian government

Jun 23, 2009, 12:00 GMT

   New Delhi - The delay in the arrival of the annual monsoon rains, in a country where over 70 per cent people are dependent on agriculture, has the Indian government worried, news reports said Tuesday.

   Prime Minister Manmohan Singh expressed his anxiety at a cabinet meeting on Friday, and cabinet secretary KM Chandrashekhar called a meeting of top officials to closely monitor the effects of the delay, Daily News and Analysis newspaper reported.

    With a global economic slowdown affecting Indian industry, the government has been depending on a 2.5 to 3 per cent growth in agriculture to prop up the economy.

   At least 60 per cent of farmland in India is rain-fed and some degree of damage has already been done by the delay in the monsoons, agriculture experts said.

   India's rainy season brought on by the south-west monsoon winds usually runs from June to September.

   The Indian Meteorological Department reported that India had received 39.5 millimetres of rainfall between June 1-17, about 45 per cent below normal.

   It said the monsoons, which usually set in along the western coast by the first week of June and in the east by the second week, had stalled since June 7.

   The conditions were likely to improve and rains were expected in parts of western Gujarat, Mahasrashtra and coastal Karnataka as well as north-eastern Assam and Meghalaya, the Meteorological Department said in its daily weather report.

   But the department also warned that severe heat wave conditions would continue over large parts of northern, north-western and central India.

   Reports said that in several states people were performing special prayers and rituals to bring on the rains.

   In central Madhya Pradesh, which has received only 13 per cent of its normal rainfall, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan participated in a yagna or fire ritual in Ujjain town, to please the rain gods.

   Chouhan's government set aside funds for similar rituals across the state, IANS news agency reported.