Crop planting to pick up in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal after rains

NEW DELHI: The monsoon is weakening, but crop planting is likely to gather pace as the fertile areas of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal are among the few patches where it rained in the last two days.

In eastern Uttar Pradesh monsoon rains on Monday was 177% above normal, giving the much needed moisture that will help farmers complete nursery sowing of long duration varieties of paddy and transplant them in some places.

“Rains in the past few days has covered the delay in arrival of monsoon across East Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal and even some eastern states,” said KK Singh, head of agromet services at India Meteorological Department (IMD).

“This will definitely boost planting of paddy, followed by maize, pulses and oilseeds,” he said. Monsoon was weak in these areas for most of June. In eastern UP, the seasonal deficit was still 22% despite Monday’s impressive rains.

Singh said that farmers were advised to undertake land preparation for transplanting of rice and transplant 20-25 days old rice nursery in East Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal and Jharkhand. Also, farmers were going ahead with planting of nursery of kharif onion, tomato, brinjal, lady finger, chilli and cauliflower, he said.

The weather office said that a low pressure area over East Uttar Pradesh and adjoining north Madhya Pradesh persists, which would give heavy rains at few places in eastern states and Madhya Pradesh over the next 24 hours. Coastal Karnataka and Kerala too are expected to receive heavy rains.

From July 2, heavy rainfall is also forecast over Bihar where the rainfall deficit is 24% till date at 118.3 mm rainfall. In west Bengal, rainfall is 1% above normal at 233.1 mm. Agriculture officials in eastern states said farmers had time to do transplanting of paddy from nurseries to fields.