India set aside900 megawatts of power and ensured a stockpile of diesel fuel will be availablefor farmers in its breadbasket states to pump up groundwater for irrigation, asthe country's metereological department downgraded its outlook for the summer monsoon.
According to anational daily, the metereological department lowered its forecast for themonsoon to 92 percent of normal rainfall levels from an earlier estimate of 96percent. If rainfall drops to 90 percent of normal, India experiences droughtconditions.
“Declaring adrought ” if at all ” depends on the extent to which farms are affected,"the paper quoted Sailesh Nayak, the earth sciences secretary, as saying.According to meteorological classification, a more than 10% rain deficit innearly 20-30% of the country qualifies as drought, the paper said.
A patchy monsooncould crimp food output and hit farm income, which supports a third of Indians,the paper said. It would also cause a spike in food prices, contributingto inflation that's already running around 10 percent.
On the otherhand, the impact of the monsoon on India's economic growth will not be asdramatic as in year's past, writes a reputed magazine.
"In anygiven year, about 16 percent of India's total area is drought prone, impactingsome 50 million people," the magazine's Sanjiv Shankaran and AnandJ reported. "But with agriculture making up only 15 per cent of thegross domestic product (GDP), compared with 55 per cent five decades ago,monsoon's impact on the economy is now limited."
One reason is avast increase in the use of irrigation since the early days of the greenrevolution, which prompts Yoginder K. Alagh, former member of the PlanningCommission, to say that deficient rainfall in June can have an impactof "not more than a quarter or half a per cent of growth in agriculturaloutput".
Inflation may bea bigger worry.
"In 2012,food prices have seen a relentless increase," reports said. "Foodinflation, as measured by the wholesale price index (WPI), was 10.74 per centin May, compared with a negative 0.68 per cent in January. Deficient rainfallin June may put pressure on prices and is bound to make macroeconomicmanagement tougher and squeeze household budgets."
That means not only the hungry will need to tighten their belts.
