Monsoon likely to hit Kerala within 48 hours, says IMD

Thiruvananthapuram, Jun 4: Monsoon seemed set to hit Kerala within 48 hours, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said on Wednesday.

The temperature in several parts of Kerala rose on Tuesday but on Wednesday evening, dark clouds formed at many places, suggesting possible rains.

Weather officials are analysing the data recorded at 14 weather stations located at the Lakshadweep, Kerala and Mangalore in Karnataka. The onset of monsoon is declared on the basis of amount of rain received at these 14 stations. Wind and cloud formations are other indicators.

Pre-Monsoon showers in Andhra, Telangana

Meanwhile, pre-monsoon showers continued in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana on Wednesday, further bringing down the day temperature, Met officials said.

Many parts of coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema regions of Andhra Pradesh while isolated rains occurred in Telangana, where the conditions remained relatively hot and humid.

According to the Hyderabad Meteorological Office, the highest maximum temperature of 43 degrees Celsius in Telangana was recorded at Nizamabad.

Almost all places in Telagana recorded maximum temperature of over 40 degrees Celsius, as per IANS

Adilabad and Nalgonda were also hot at 42 degrees. Hanamkonda, Hyderabad and Medak recorded a maximum temperature of 41 while it was 40 degrees in Mahabubnagar and Ramagundam.

This was a three to four notches lower than the maximum temperature in the state a few days ago.

Few places over coastal Andhra Pradesh and Rayalaseema continued to receive rains. The rainfall at a few places in the two regions ranged between six and 11 centimetres.

The pre-monsoon showers have brought down the temperatures in Andhra Pradesh.

The highest maximum temperature of 40 degree Celsius was recorded at Nellore and Jangamaheshwarapuram in Guntur district.

The maximum temperature in most parts of the state was between 33 and 36 degrees Celsius.

Met officials said the mercury at some places in coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema was one or two degree below average.

They forecast moderate to rather heavy rains or thundershowers over coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema.

The pre-monsoon rains have provided respite to people from the blistering heat wave, which killed more than 2,200 people in the two Telugu states during the last 20 days.

Moderate rain in North India

Up in the north, moderate rain in various parts of Himachal Pradesh on Wednesday brought down the temperature by two to three notches, with the weatherman forecasting more thundershowers in the state on Thursday.

An official of the meteorological office told IANS that most of the prominent tourist destinations like Shimla, Narkanda, Kasauli, Palampur, Dharamsala and Manali saw spells of rain during the day, bringing down the temperatures considerably.

In the east, Kolkata had a hot and oppressively humid day on Wednesday, even as the weatherman predicted thunderstorms over the next 48 hours at a couple of places of Gangetic West Bengal, covering the districts in the southern part of the state.

The maximum city temperature during the day was 37.4 degrees Celsius, a degree above the average. The minimum recorded temperature was 28.5 degrees Celsius, two degrees above average.

The humidity ranged between a high of 86 percent and low of 51 percent.

Govt gears up to ring-fence farmers, prices from poor rains

On the other hand, as the spectre of deficient monsoon looms large, the government on Wednesday announced a number of contingency measures to minimise the losses in agriculture and power sectors, safeguard farmers' interest and keep prices under check.

The downward revision to the monsoon forecast -- from 'below normal' to 'deficient' -- has already sparked drought fears, pushing stock markets into a freefall and raising doubts about economic recovery. The benchmark BSE Sensex tanked over 1,000 points in the past two days, washing out over Rs 3 lakh crore in market capitalisation.

Besides, firms with significant exposure to agriculture and rural markets are fearing significant business losses.

While the agriculture sector is already passing through a bad phase, the rainfall deficiency may have multiplier adverse impact on manufacturing and services sectors, a composite gauge for which today recorded a seven-month low figure.

"In the agriculture sector, there would obviously be some losses if there are problems (of deficient rains). We have confidence and policies in place to ensure there is minimum damage to agriculture sector and overall economy," Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh told reporters in the national capital, as per PTI.

The Minister said a new crop insurance policy will be brought in to protect farmers' income, while the government will take steps to improve domestic supplies through imports to check the price of pulses, which are already high.

Singh said the government is ready with contingency plans for 580 districts and is in touch with state governments and agriculture research bodies to tackle the situation.

Power Minister Piyush Goyal also said that the contingency plans have been drawn up to meet any eventuality in case the deficient monsoon hits hydro power output.

"It's a matter of concern that the monsoon is expected to be below normal, deficient. We are conscious that this will result in a fall in hydropower production and the demand will also increase... The Ministry of Power and the Ministry of Coal are seized of the situation," Goyal said.

The minister, however, sought to allay concerns and said that adequate coal is available at every thermal plant in the country to meet any shortfall in hydro-power output.

The Met department has revised its rainfall forecast from 93 per cent to 88 per cent for this year, with north-west region of the country expected to be hit the most.

Last year, the country had received 12 per cent less rains, which hit production of grains, cotton and oilseeds.

According to the government's estimate, total foodgrains production has declined to 251.12 million tonnes in the 2014-15 crop year (July-June) from a record production of 265.04 million tonnes in the previous year.

Due to poor monsoon, agriculture growth stood at 0.2 per cent in the 2014-15 fiscal.