With a rain deficit of 60 per cent?
Yes, it looks like, considering the erratic weather pattern predicted by the various global weather models and also their over-all prediction of a ‘rain-normal’ model for the New Year for the country. From Thiruvanathanpuram comes news of a report on scattered to isolated rain for the Southern states, though Karnataka and AP and Telangana would remain dry, the report says. This time we seem to be getting and also using the foreign weather tracking centres.
According to the European Centre for Medium-Range Forecasts, the rain carrying trough would come back into the reckoning back to back towards the last week and the year and the India Met Department has predicted a weather pattern along the same lines as far as the Southern states are concerned.
The US Climate Prediction Centre has a different view. It predicts mostly normal rain during the week ending December 24 fort he entire South Peninsula but a dry phase over South Tamil Nadu and also parts of Kerala.
The very many weather predictions pout to a rain deficit of 60 per cent for the Peninsula during this North East Monsoon as the season comes to an end with the year end too.
Global weather models have been hinting that the December-January-February (2016-17) might be able to witness nearly normal monsoon for the country as a whole.
This outlook received better traction from the latest seasonal outlooks made available by the Application of Jamsetc, the Japanese national weather forecaster. They seemed to favour less-than normal heat during the December-January-February quarter for the South Peninsula while it will be warmer for West, North, North-West and East India.
Mostly similar weather conditions are predicted for next quarter for the South Peninsula while the rest of India will stay warmer.
As for precipitation, Jamstec is of the view most of the country would receive normal rainfall for the next to come quarter. It is good that now we are able to rack the weather patterns more extensively and also from any other authoritative weather prediction models as well.
All these predictions and assessments gives hope and also much optimism to expect that the agricultural scenario in India would kick back with some optimism and the agricultural growth, also as envisaged by experts and planners, also give hopes for stable agricultural scenario.
Mr. Ramesh Chand, member of the NITI Aayog, Prime Minister Modi’s new planning commission and think tank has also give us much hope by predicting that agricultural growth will exceed 5 per cent this year.
This is a much more morale-boosting assessment by experts who track the ground level realities also carefully.
In an interview Mr.Chand has made detailed observations about how the demonetisation has impacted the economy, more so the agricultural economy where cash dealings of the farmers is the most critical element and yet Mr.Chand alkyls the firs held widely among the farming communities that cashless transactions haven’t impacted the actual transactions. Most of the rural economy revolves under trust and credit, says he and also notes that that too only in the case of perishable crops like flowers, vegetables and other immediate short-term crops only might be affected and too in his assessment it is not so serious.
When it comes to crops like paddy, wheat and other grain crops and others the farmers can hold back their crops for sale by few days at least. As such there is not much dislocation and the days to come we will see the situation would turn normal. Though the fact remains that even after one month and longer it is very distressing to see long queues still stand in front of banks and ATMs.
Though public frustration hasn’t developed into one of hostility for the PM’s obsession, yes that seems to be the world, with the enforcement of measures almost forcibly to convert the economic nto a digital force.
May be things could have been planned in a better way and some efficiency could have been enforced into the bureaucratic higgledy-piggledy!
Let us only hope that people’s confidence in the government’s aspirations and reality on the ground match without further disorder and confusion.