Paddy takes a hit in TN floods

According to the Crops Division of the Agriculture Ministry, transplanting of paddy for the Rabi season was in progress in Tamil Nadu with 2.08 lakh hectare being covered so far.

Paddy was sown in about 12.51 lakh hectare till October 31 this year. And it was being estimated that 89,629.7 hectare of crop area had been affected in Nagapattinam, Trichy, Thanjavur, Namakkal, Dhrampuri, Krishnagiri, Karur, Thiruvarur and Madurai districts due to heavy rains, according to the crop division.

This assessment extends from late October to the third week of November with the assessment of damage still on. States have just started sowing rice for the Rabi season.

But the good news is that the water levels in reservoirs in Tamil Nadu are at their highest. The six reservoirs monitored by the Central Water Commission recorded 4.06 billion cubic metre of water of the total live storage at full reservoir level on November 25. Last year, on the same day, it was 3.29 billion cubic metre. And the average of the last 10 years is just 2.69 billion cubic metre.

Officials, however, said that these were just preliminary estimates and the final figure could be quite different.

According to the medium range weather forecast by the Met department, this week will see widespread rainfall over coastal Tamil Nadu.

Meanwhile, for the country as a whole, wheat has been sown in 142.05 lakh hectare as compared to 119.58 lakh hectare for the same period last year. Higher coverage has been recorded in Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan while there was slightly lower coverage in Punjab and Haryana.

Rice has been sown in 3.39 lakh hectare while last year, for the same period, the area was 3.11 lakh hectare. And the total coverage of coarse cereals was reported to be 58.21 lakh hectare against 60.57 lakh hectare for the same time last year.