Centre assures its support to States in case monsoon further delayed

New Delhi, June 26 (ANI): The Central Government has assured the States of adequate availability of short-duration seeds that may be required in case of further delay in monsoon.

Saying monsoon would revive shortly, the Centre has maintained that there is no cause for worry at this moment.

On Friday, to disuss the current situation arising due to delay in monsoon and contingency plan in the case of a possible failure of monsoon, the Union Agriculture Secretary T Nanda Kumar held a meeting with his counterparts of in States that have not received rainfall like Maharashtra, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Bihar, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh so far.

"There is no cause of worry if monsoon arrives by June-end. The States have been assured that there is enough seed availability to meet the demand in case short-duration seed is required," a Union Agriculture Secretary T Nanda Kumar said after the meeting.

Scientists are hopeful that the situation would not deteriorate if the rains come in a week, Kumar added.

During the meet, the subject of availability of water in the reservoirs was also discussed. It was felt that the water level would go up once the monsoon arrived and water would be available to farmers for irrigation.

The States were informed that the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) has started posting crop-weather updates on a weekly basis from Wednesday on its website. The ICAR has been asked to post on its website the phone numbers of key technical persons in every state so that they can be contacted in the case of emergency, sources said.

The meeting took stock of the situation in the north-west and found that the situation is not alarming even if the region gets less rainfall because states like Punjab and Haryana are well-irrigated.

The official said that there would not be any problem if monsoon arrives by July 10. (ANI)