Southwest monsoon covers India, 35 days after touching Kerala coast

The southwest monsoon covered the entire country on Thursday, 35 days after it entered the mainland through the Kerala coast, marking one of its slowest advances in the past five years.

The last time the southwest monsoon took longer to cover the entire country after its onset over Kerala was in 2021, when it reached the state on June 3 and completed its advance across India on July 13, taking around 40 days.

This year, the monsoon reached the Kerala coast on June 4, three days later than normal, and covered the entire country on July 9, according to data released by the India Meteorological Department (IMD).

After a slow start, the southwest monsoon gathered momentum in July, reducing the cumulative rainfall deficit from nearly 30 per cent on June 30 to around 15 per cent as of July 8. The sharp improvement was driven by a strong revival of monsoon activity over western and central India.

The improvement in rainfall is also expected to support kharif sowing, which was lagging last year's pace by nearly 22 per cent as of July 5.

The IMD has forecast below-normal rainfall this year, with the southwest monsoon expected to be 90 per cent of the Long Period Average (LPA) during the June-September season.

Meanwhile, the Centre is working on a multi-pronged strategy to mitigate the adverse impact of El Niño and below-normal rainfall.

A few days ago, the Prime Minister's Office chaired a high-level meeting with major ministries, including agriculture, power, rural development, economic affairs and consumer affairs, to assess the possible impact of El Niño on different sectors of the economy.

According to an official statement issued after the meeting, ministries presented detailed assessments of their preparedness and were asked to closely monitor the evolving situation while adopting micro-level and localised strategies to ensure that agricultural production and economic activity are not adversely affected in areas receiving deficient rainfall.

The Union agriculture ministry is also monitoring the situation closely. It has identified around 375 districts that could be vulnerable to deficient rainfall, of which 111 have been classified as "extremely vulnerable".