Monsoon likely to be normal this year, says farm secretary PK Basu

NEW DELHI: The first official forecast for the June to September monsoon is likely to be released on April 26. Preliminary indications hint at a normal monsoon this year.

Officials in the Indian Meteorological Department are busy assessing and analysing data and information collected from across the globe.

"We are not only assessing the weather phenomena affecting the Indian subcontinent but also factoring in global conditions. It will take another couple of days before we can say anything concrete," said a senior MET official.

"We are having a good monsoon for the last two years. This year also, the monsoon is likely to be normal," said farm secretary PK Basu.

Agriculture minister Sharad Pawar also hopes for a normal monsoon this year. "We have gone through several national and international reports on monsoon. There's no cause for worry at least this year," said Pawar.

"We are likely to come up with the first forecast on Thursday. We have gathered all data and are compiling it. At this point of time, it's difficult to predict anything," said Dr Shailesh Nayak, secretary, ministry of Earth Sciences.

However, food and public distribution secretary BC Gupta fears the intervention of the El Nino phenomenon which would impact the latter half of the monsoon. "The are chances of El Nino shift in ocean temperatures and atmospheric conditions in the tropical Pacific that may set in dry conditions in August-September," he said.

But the South Asian Climate Outlook Forum held at Pune last week too has not ruled out a slight tendency of the summer monsoon rainfall to be below normal over some broad areas of northwestern and southern parts of South Asia.

A map released with the forecast shows Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat and parts of Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu in the below-normal rainfall category.

The monsoon is vital for the agriculture as rainfed agro-ecologies contribute 60% of the net sown area.

The agriculture department is optimistic about the behaviour of monsoon this year also.