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NEW DELHI, Oct. 4

THE India Meteorological Department (IMD) has officially acknowledged that the current year has been "the first-ever all-India drought year'' since 1987, while noting that the behaviour of the 2002 monsoon was "intriguing".

In its end-of-the-season report released here today, IMD noted that the aggregate rainfall received by the country as a whole during this year's monsoon season from June 1 to September, at 735.9 mm, was 19.35 per cent below the historical long period average (LPA) of 912.5 mm for this period. Further, 29 per cent of the area in the country recorded drought conditions, with rainfall deficiency (relative to LPA) exceeding 25 per cent.

According to IMD, the country is said to experience a drought year when the overall rainfall deficiency is more than 10 per cent of the LPA and more than 20 per cent of its area is affected by drought conditions.

By this definition, "2002 becomes an all-India drought year'', with rainfall deficiency for the country as a whole amounting to 19 per cent and drought conditions impacting 29 per cent of its geographical area.

Of the 29 per cent area affected by drought conditions, 10 per cent was under `severe drought' and the remaining under `moderate drought'.

The area under `severe drought' (recording rainfall deficiency of more than 50 per cent) covered two out the country's 36 meteorological sub-divisions — West Rajasthan (minus 71 per cent) and East Rajasthan (minus 60 per cent).

The area under `moderate drought' (registering rainfall deficiency of 26-50 per cent relative to LPA) covered 10 sub-divisions — Haryana, Chandigarh & Delhi (minus 36 per cent), Punjab (minus 36 per cent), Coastal Andhra Pradesh (minus 26 per cent), Rayalaseema (minus 33 per cent), North Interior Karnataka (minus 31 per cent), South Interior Karnataka (minus 44 per cent), Coastal Karnataka (minus 30 per cent), Tamil Nadu (minus 45 per cent), Kerala (minus 35 per cent) and Lakshadweep (minus 45 per cent).

Besides, there were nine other sub-divisions, where rainfall deficiency exceeded 20 per cent of the respective LPA. These included the Gujarat region (minus 24 per cent), Saurashtra & Kutch (minus 25 per cent), Telangana (minus 23 per cent), East Uttar Pradesh (minus 24 per cent), West Uttar Pradesh (minus 21 per cent), West Madhya Pradesh (minus 22 per cent), Himachal Pradesh (minus 20 per cent), Arunachal Pradesh (minus 22 per cent) and Andaman & Nicobar (minus 24 per cent).

Rainfall was `normal' (i.e deficiency below 20 per cent) only in the remaining 15 sub-divisions. These included Jammu & Kashmir (plus 22 per cent), Gangetic West Bengal (plus five per cent), sub-Himalayan West Bengal (plus 12 per cent), Bihar (plus one per cent), Jharkhand (plus three per cent), Uttaranchal (minus two per cent), Vidarbha (minus three per cent), Marathwada (minus three per cent), Nagaland-Mizoram-Manipur-Tripura (minus 10 per cent), East Madhya Pradesh (minus 13 per cent), Madhya Maharashtra (minus 15 per cent), Chhattisgarh (minus 16 per cent), Konkan & Goa (minus 18 per cent), Orissa (minus 19 per cent) and Assam & Meghalaya (minus 19 per cent).

While admitting 2002 to be among the four major droughts of the century, IMD, however, said that the situation was mainly caused by the dry spell in July, with the rainfall deficiency of 49 per cent during the month being "the worst in the history of recorded observations''. Only on two previous occasions in the past (1911 and 1918) did rainfall deficiency exceed 45 per cent in July.

On the other hand, unlike previous episodes of drought, the rainfall was actually on the positive side of normal in June this year, with precipitation being much better even in August and September (see Table).

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