Drought — No respite for two more months, says Met

Though its early days yet for the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) to come out with its monsoon forecast for this year, all indications are that the first rains will hit the Kerala coast by June 1.

The IMD uses a complex 16-parameter model for making its calculations on the monsoon, including such physical inputs as temperature, atmospheric pressure, effects of El Nino, ocean temperature and snow cover in the Himalayan ranges to forecast the rainfall projections for the year.

This annual forecast is made around May 25, and this year too Met Department officials are unwilling to give any hints on what lies in store for the country till all the inputs are in.

But question them about the drought and they are quick to point out that they are not in the business of predicting drought. "We keep track of the monsoon", says IMD Director General R R Kelkar.

Nearly 80 per cent of India’s rainfall occurs between June and September. This season decreases to about two months of July and August in Rajasthan, while in Gujarat it is about three months from June-end to September.

The remaining 20 per cent of rainfall is divided between the nine-odd remaining months. In the case of Rajasthan, this constitutes a miniscule 2mm or 3mm of rainfall, which is almost negligible.

Even with a good monsoon, as India has been enjoying for the last twelve years, there are always areas which will have a little less or a little more rainfall than had been predicted. For example, there were floods in Bihar last year following heavy rainfall.

As early as the end of the last monsoon, IMD officials had noted that Saurashtra and Kutch in Gujarat had received deficient rainfall. "In October 1999, in our monsoon-end report we had reported 58 per cent less rainfall in Saurashtra and Kutch", said S R Kalsi, Deputy Director, IMD.

To make mattes worse there have been no pre-monsoon rainfall in Gujarat at all, while Rajasthan has had some showers, but not enough to make a difference as is evident from the reports of severe drought conditions in the state, especially in the worst-hit dustbowl districts of Jalore, Sirohi and Barmer.

For both Rajasthan and Gujarat, the primary source of water is the monsoon and pre-monsoon showers. However, the sharp fluctuations in precipitation, mostly deficient, in east and west Rajasthan, Saurashtra and Kutch districts of Gujarat in the last three years, have resulted in the worst drought since 1987.