India’s annual June-September monsoon rains, vital for farm and overall economic growth in Asia’s third-biggest economy, were 23% below average in 2009, the worst since 1972, government data showed on Thursday.
Rainfall in the past week were 39% below average, data released by the India Meteorological Department showed.
India’s worst monsoon in four decades came to an end on Wednesday. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) said this was the country’s most severe drought since 1972 with a 23% rainfall deficit spanning over 60% of the country.
Typically, a 10% shortage over 20% of the country qualifies as a drought, according to IMD’s definition. The met department didn’t anticipate a drought in April when it prepared its first monsoon performance estimates.
Several research teams across the country are still trying to understand why this year’s drought was so intense, though most of the blame is put on an El-Nino event—the warming of certain regions in the Pacific Ocean, which draws out moisture from the monsoon clouds.
However, comfortable buffer stocks of wheat and rice from previous years, timely subsidies by government on diesel, groundwater irrigation and higher minimum support prices for food grain buffered farmers from a severe hit to their incomes.
(source: Mint)
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