Thaindian News

Agartala/Guwahati, Aug 3 (IANS) The northeastern region, excluding Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh, has recorded deficit rainfall in the monsoon season and this may hit agricultural production, officials said Wednesday.

Arunachal Pradesh has got 10 percent less rains.

“Since June 1, the northeast has suffered a 38 percent shortfall compared to the normal rainfall,” an India Meteorological Department (IMD) official told IANS.

“Soon after the onset of monsoon in the first week of June, some parts of the northeast witnessed normal rainfall but subsequently the precipitation reversed,” he said.

According to IMD’s centre in Guwahati, the deficit rainfall in the northeast is minimum in Arunachal Pradesh, where the shortfall recorded is 10 percent.

In contrast, the deficit is a record 51 percent in Manipur.

Meghalaya has recorded 49 percent deficit rainfall followed by Nagaland (40 percent), Mizoram (35 percent), Tripura (30 percent) and Assam (28 percent).

“The sea surface temperature in the Bay of Bengal is very low. If this remains 27 percent and more, depression and other favourable conditions create monsoon rains,” IMD director Dilip Saha told IANS in Agartala.

He said: “The moistures are not adequate in the region, resulting in scarcity of rainfall in the mountainous states.”

The fall in rainfall has hit agriculture.

“Excess rainfall, coupled with floods, have damaged crops in some parts of the northeast including Assam while deficit rainfall would affect crops including ‘Boro rice’,” an Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) official said in Agartala.

In the northeast, there are three meteorological sub-divisions.

According to IMD’s official records, the rainfall in the region was short by 25 percent last year.