Met dept predicts early withdrawal of monsoon

In a not so pleasant development, the Metrological department on Thursday predicted the early withdrawal of south-west monsoon in mid-September, which is likely to put more pressure on the Centre to ensure food security.

According to reports, the MET, after its assessment, said that the early withdrawal of south-west monsoon can be due to the strong El Nino events, which are mainly responsible for severe drought in Africa, India and Australia.

Considering the bad spell of monsoon in various parts of the country, the MET officials have said that the Year 2009 can be classified as a "typical drought year".

The south-west monsoon normally withdraws by the end of September, but going by the MET department's prediction it is likely to withdraw in early or mid September.

The delayed and deficient monsoon has severely affected the country's economy as nearly one-fifth of the India's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) comes from the agriculture sector.

In view of this, even a moderate crop failure can have severe economic and societal impacts.

The bad spell of monsoon has largely damaged the Rabi crops and the prices of essential commodities have sky-rocketed.

As many as 161 districts across India have been declared drought hit and the Centre has promised more assistance to the affected states to effectively deal with the situation.

The MET's prediction have come hours after the Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh has constituted a crisis team of Group of Ministers to take stock of the drought situation.

The main task of this crisis team will be to minimise the damaging impact of drought on food prices and to improve the condition of farmers most-affected by it