Monsoon Forecast | Investment made over the decades is paying off

If the 2016 drought manual and the national crisis management plan for drought are followed, the impact of a possible deficiency in rainfall will be largely mitigated

From Africa to Australia, several countries get rains in monsoon. But India is the only country which issues a seasonal forecast for monsoon precipitation. This expertise with the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) has been developed over several decades, and the effort is globally recognised. Even if the monsoon science is not perfect, the forecast does give time to governments to prepare for monsoon moods.

Seen in this light, the long-range forecast of South-West Monsoon issued by the IMD on May 26 is good news for economy since 73.4 percent of annual rainfall comes in the four months of June to September.

It is useful to note that the Long Period Average (LPA) of monsoon rainfall has been coming down over the years. From 1951 to 2000, it was 89 cm. It came down to 88 cm in 1961-2010. It has further come down to 87 cm in the period 1971-2020.

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The IMD’s May forecast expects the rainfall from June to September to be normal — that is in the range of 96 to 104 percent of the LPA. The IMD points out that El Niño conditions are likely to develop during the monsoon season, but positive Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) conditions are likely to develop which may neutralise the adverse impact of El-Nino.

Earlier on April 10, Skymet had released its monsoon forecast, which projected that the monsoon is likely to be 'below normal' to the tune of 94 percent of the LPA.

Does it mean that the threat of El-Nino has subsided?

The IMD has itself projected that there is 51 percent possibility of deficient or below normal rainfall. But the good news is that the IMD expects good distribution of rainfall during the monsoon period. Only some areas in the North-West, parts of West-Central India, and some pockets of the North-East are expected to receive normal or below normal rainfall.

In North-West India, Punjab, Haryana, and West Uttar Pradesh are under almost full irrigation cover, and even if there is some deficit in rainfall or its distribution, the crop production, mainly paddy in Punjab and Haryana, and sugarcane in West UP, is not too adversely affected. However, poor monsoon is bad for underground water level.

In the irrigated areas in Maharashtra and Karnataka, erratic rainfall in 2022 was bad for crops. Sugar production this year is a good example to understand the impact of uneven rainfall. If one looks at the figure of overall monsoon, India had about 7 percent excess rainfall in 2022. Yet, sugarcane production is lower, due to bad distribution across the states.

In the 2021-22 season (October-September), India produced 35.8 million tonnes (mt) of sugar.

In July, the preliminary forecast of Indian Sugar Mills Association (ISMA) for 2022-23 had estimated the sugar production at 35.5 mt (after diversion for ethanol). In October, it was raised to 36.5 mt. But the production estimate was reduced to 34 mt in January. In April, it was further cut to 32.8 mt.

This drop in production was mainly due to lower sugar output in Maharashtra, where the production estimate of ISMA in July was 13.7 mt, but it was cut to 12.1 mt in January and 10.5 mt in April.

On May 31, 2022, the IMD forecast for monsoon for Central India and the South Peninsula was above normal (>106 percent of the LPA). But the actual rainfall was poorly distributed in Maharashtra and Karnataka, which affected the sugarcane crop. There was lower rainfall in the earlier months of monsoon (which is the growth period of sugarcane) and excess rainfall in the later months.

This year too, it is possible that there may be a deviation from the IMD’s May forecast, and the Union government and states should prepare for less than normal rainfall. The Krishi Bhawan has the expertise and experience of dealing with droughts. The Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare (DACFW) prepared a drought manual in 2009 which was revised in 2016. There is a Central Drought Relief Commissioner in the Department of Agriculture who maintains close co-ordination with the state governments. Contingency plans are already in place for most districts of India. The DACFW, in 2019, also published the National Crisis Management Plan for drought.

If the guidelines in these two documents are followed by the governments, the impact of possible deficiency in rainfall will be largely mitigated. The government should not shy away from declaring a drought if the parameters of its own documents are met.

Monsoon science is still evolving. The investment made by the government in the IMD in the previous decades in enhancing its technical capability has enabled it to make dynamic models of forecasting. The National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting, Noida, and the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune, are modelling hubs of the Ministry of Earth Sciences. The IMD uses their inputs for weather forecasts. However, the government cannot leave the matter to the IMD alone.

(Siraj Hussain is former Union Agriculture Secretary. Twitter: @sirajnoida)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.