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Delay in monsoon worries India, PMO monitors progress
Manu Sharma, Tuesday June 23, 2009, Patna, Bhubaneswar

The entire country is sizzling under heat wave, and the Meteorological Department has issued a severe heat wave warning across North and Central India.

India is worried, and now the Prime Minister's Office is tracking the monsoon.

"PMO is keeping an eye on monsoon. We will come to you in two three days with details and response," said Prithviraj Chavan, MoS, PMO.

The Centre has asked 10 states on the critical list to submit a report by Thursday. These states could be affected by the delayed monsoon.

The government is preparing to deal with the impact of the missing rains.

The biggest fear right now is the impact that this delay of monsoon is going to have on agriculture as 60 per cent of India's crops are rain fed.

If it happens, the impact will be quite detrimental on states like Bihar where according to a study, 40 per cent of all paddy seeds are planted this season.

For the moment, some state governments have announced a subsidy to the farmers on diesel so that they can continue to use their pumps for irrigation. But that is just a stop gap measure.

Further delay in a good monsoon will eventually result in the states reducing the water supply for irrigation and conserving it for drinking purposes instead.

Extreme temperatures that seem to be soaring everyday are not helping. Most of India's cities are battling with temperatures over 40 degrees Centigrade everyday.

Orissa is also burning with temperatures running as high as 46 degrees Centigrade.

Some states are already worried that they may be staring at a probable drought. The impact on environment is also a worrying factor as a forest fire is growing in Jammu.

Today there was slight drizzle in a couple of cities, but the monsoon is expected by the June 25. Hopefully by then the rain gods would relent.

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Tags: India, monsoon, PMO, rain
Comments
Posted by Sagar on Jun 25, 2009
Govt. is bailing out India's pride AIR INDIA, good. But, who is going to bail out the poor farmers of India who are going to get a big hit from a disappointing Monsoon ??? Is Govt. doing something about it ??? I dont think so.
Posted by Helen C Xavier on Jun 24, 2009
I appreciate NDTV's efforts to promote environment friendly initiatives. I feel that the monsoon is getting scantier and delayed mainly because there is large scale felling of trees to pave ways for road and real estate needs. The once shady trees on roadsides and in streets have been replaced by buildings and roads. Fyrther trees are cut also for temporary needs like festivals. There are great looking highways and roads which are exposed to sunlight - a reminder of the global warming so visible. With the trees the whole system of life forms which add beauty to nature disappears. This is one basic problems which is taken cursorily by governement . Todays anything which is lucrative and profitable is given precedence over nature and there is no hesitation to kill nature. Why cant development be so one sided? why not co-exist with nature. We hear trees will be grown but then what we see is trees being felled. If the governemt makes felling of trees a punishable ofence , this problem may stop. Further there can be incentives to people who plant trees. This may encourage the planting of and maintenance of existing trees.
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