New Delhi, August 14: The monsoon situation has worsened across the country with the deficiency in the cumulative rainfall since the beginning of the season increasing to 29 per cent as on Wednesday, against 25 per cent just a week ago, on August 5.
As per the latest weekly weather report of the India Meteorological Department, out of the total 533 meteorological districts in the country, while the number of districts under the scanty category has swelled from 104 to 115, those under the deficient category has gone up from 245 to 262. Conseqently, only 149 districts are now under the normal or excess category, from 177 on August 5.
[Scanty is defined as a shortfall of over 60 in the cumulative rainfall, while deficient is defined as a shortfall of between 20 per cent and 59 percent of the normal].
In other words, as many as 22 per cent of the districts now have a deficiency of over 60 per cent and 50 per cent more had a shortfall of between 20 per cent and 59 per cent. The corresponding figures on August 5 was 20 per cent and 47 per cent respectively. The ratio of districts with normal or excess rainfall has correspondingly come down from 33 per cent to 28 per cent.
Delhi-Haryana-Chandigarh-Uttar Pradesh belt in north India continue to be the worst hit. The western half of Uttar Pradesh has the maximum shortfall, at a whopping 68 per cent. It was followed closely by the Delhi- Haryana-Chandigarh region, which has a deficiency of 66 per cent and the eastern part of Uttar Pradesh, where the deficiency is 53 per cent.
Andhra Pradesh is another region of serious concern as the deficiencies in the State ranged from 59 per cent in Telengana to 51 per cent in Rayalaseema and 46 per cent in the coastal parts.
The situation remains grim in Himachal Pradesh, Jharkand, and the Marathwada, with the deficiencies continuing to be 51 per cent, 49 per cent and 47 per cent respectively. The conditions have improved to some extent in Punjab, Bihar, and the northeast, but they are still not fully out of the wood.
Punjab continues to have a deficiency of 35 per cent, Bihar 40 per cent, Assam-Meghalaya and Nagaland-Mizoram-Manipur-Tripura regions 37 per cent each, and Arunachal Pradesh 33 per cent. In Uttarakhand, the deficiency continues to remain at 42 per cent.
In the rest of the country, the Tamil Nadu-Pondicherry and the north interior Karnataka regions have now slipped into the deficient category with the shortfalls in their cumulative rainfall going down to 22 per cent each from 16 per cent and 17 per cent respectively on August 5.
There has also been a sharp increase in the deficiency in Gujarat region from 22 per cent to 31 per cent, West Madhya Pradesh from 21 per cent to 28 per cent and East Madhya Pradesh from 35 per cent to 39 per cent over the past one week.
–Agencies