Kharif crop planting jumps 4% year on year

NEW DELHI: Crop planting this kharif season has so far covered 4.16% more area than a year ago while water levels in the country’s 91 major reservoirs are on an average 17.09% higher, show official data.

From the beginning of the kharif season in June till September 2, crop planting has covered 1,054.49 lakh hectares, close to the kharif season target of 1,062.50 lakh hectares, according to data released by the agriculture ministry on Friday.

The increase is largely in acreage of pulses, followed by coarse cereals, rice and oilseeds.

Sugarcane and cotton though have seen a dip in planting.

Areas growing pulses have increased 29% from the previous year to 143.95 lakh hectares. Planting of arhar has increased more than 39.81% from last year, followed by moongbean and uradbean.

Sugarcane planting, on the contrary, is down 7.72% from a year ago at 45.77 lakh hectares, while the area under cotton is lower by 11% at 102.13 lakh hectares.

Rice planting now covers 380.28 lakh hectares, up 2.77 % from last year. This kharif season, rice will be planted on 392.81 lakh hectares.

The area under coarse cereals, which include maize, bajra, ragi, small millets and maize, has posted an increase of 6.10% over the previous year to cover 187.86 lakh hectares.

Planting of oilseeds too has risen 2.89% on year to cover 186.95 lakh hectares. Planting of groundnut has increased by 30.21% to 46.57 lakh hectares, while soyabean, an important commodity in the edible oil basket, has seen a 1.30% fall having planted on 114.66 lakh hectares.

The area under sunflower farming has seen an increase from the previous year -- up 11.20% --and has till date been planted on 1.58 lakh hectares.

Meanwhile, 91 major reservoir dams in the country together held 108.104 billion cubic metres (bcm) of water as ofThursday, compared with 92.324 bcm a year ago. The water levels are, however, lower than the 10-year average of 111.837 bcm, according to data from the Central Water Commission ( CWC). Last week, the total water in these reservoirs was 105.248 bcm.