Kharif sowing gets delayed as North sweats under heat

PUNE: A trip to the hill stations to escape from the blistering heat in the northern plains may not bring the kind of respite you typically expect. Some popular hill stations in Himachal Pradesh and Kashmir are unusually hot this year. The usually cool Kullu recorded nearly 37 degree Celsius on Sunday, as much as 6 degrees above normal, while in Srinagar, where the normal is a pleasant 25, it was 31 degrees. At about 30 degrees, the temperature in Shimla was about 4 degrees more than what is normal for the Himachal capital.

Of course, these are comfortable levels when compared with the boiling northern and northwestern India. The searing heatwave has set new records with temperatures shooting as much as 7-8 degrees above normal to around 50 degrees in several places of Rajasthan and Haryana. In most of parts of the northern, western and central India, the mercury is 3-5 degrees above normal.

The blistering heatwave is likely to bake these regions for at least another three days as the weather office has issued heatwave warnings until Wednesday. It has been a particularly harsh summer in northwestern India, which has faced quirky weather in recent years. In 2015, Rajasthan, particularly the desert area, was the only region to receive surplus rain, while the monsoon failed in the rest of the country.

The unprecedented heat raises the risk of more reservoirs drying up, and highlights the country’s vulnerability to a water crisis as tens of thousands of villages are running out of drinking water, prompting authorities to take emergency measures to counter dehydration and heat stroke and to rush tankers to quench people’s thirst. Agriculture isn’t affected significantly — most key crops are harvested and new ones are yet to be sown — but kharif planting may see delays if the monsoon doesn’t set in as expected. Long-term crops like sugarcane and fruit orchards have been hit, though.

Meanwhile, only those farmers who have access to irrigation may go for early sowing of kharif crops, as the monsoon is expected to set in a few days late this year. But the weather office is predicting normal rains this year, which is good news for farmers after two straight years of drought Ajay Vir Jakhar, chairman of the Bharat Krushak Samaj, said: “The farmers, who do not have access to irrigation, will not do sowing until they get monsoon rains. But there will be only limited impact on the crop that has already been sown in the irrigated areas, as a good monsoon is expected to follow soon.”

Last week, Phalodi in Rajasthan sizzled at 51 degrees, beating the national record of 50.6 degrees recorded at Alwar 60 years ago. For days, many parts of Bikaner, Churu, Barmer and Jaisalmer in Rajasthan were baked with temperatures between 45 and 50 degrees. Though most parts may get some relief from high temperatures by May-end, the core heatwave regions of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, may have to bear it a little longer.