“India’s monsoon, which accounts for four-fifths of the country’s annual rainfall, revived after a two-week lull and is set to progress toward the main cotton and rice growing areas, the weather bureau said.
Rains moved further into the southern state of Karnataka and covered the entire province of Goa and some parts of the Konkan region on the west coast, the India Meteorological Department, said in a statement on its Web site. The advance of the monsoon, which set in over Kerala state a week before usual this year, stalled after tropical cyclone Aila lashed the nation’s coast on May 25.
Timely rains help boost yields of crops including rice and corn that are sowed after the onset of the monsoon. Increased production will help Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government to keep its promise of distributing grain to the poor at below market prices.
The weather bureau predicts “scattered to fairly widespread rainfall activity over the west coast of India and the northeastern states” in the next 48 hours.
Rains covered some regions of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, and parts of Orissa, West Bengal and Sikkim by May 25, the IMD said. The monsoon was moving toward Maharashtra, the biggest sugar cane-producing state and the No.2 cotton grower, when it stalled.
India received 12.5 millimeters (0.5 inch) of rain in the week ended June 3 compared with a 50-year average of 19.2 millimeters for the period, the weather office said June 4.
Rains were 32 percent below normal at 91 millimeters compared to the 134.5 millimeter average in the three months to May 31, the agency said. Precipitation was below average in 24 of 36 weather zones last week, and normal in the rest.”
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