Nagpur district's rain deficit has reached an alarming 84 per cent in the past few days which is far worse than any part of scarcity-stricken Vidarbha region in Maharashtra.

To make matters worse, the dry spell continues to extend further at a time when monsoon should have been at its peak.Contrary to the Met office prediction, most areas of the city remained dry even on Sunday with hardly 0.8 mm rainfall.

Farmers from the district who have already sown Kharif crop and had suffered losses during hail storm few months back, are now facing dire consequences.

According to sources close to Agriculture department, there is a possibility that crops in about 20 per cent area where sowing has already been done, may be partially or completely damaged.

If rains do not occur in the next few days farmers may be looking towards a far larger loss, they said.

Any further delay in commencement of monsoon would also dampen the prospects of second and third sowing.

Moreover, the regional Met office has also failed to forecast rains in the past month.

After the pre-monsoon showers, there have hardly been 10-15 rainy days in the past month and a half. Even in those days the city witnessed rains not more than 10 mm.

Total rainfall till now has been around 90 to 100 mm, whereas last year during this period, the city had received more than 260 mm rainfall.

Deficit in rainfall district wise is as follows: Akola- 49%, Amravati- 60%, Bhandara- 70%, Buldana- 69%, Chandrapur-70%, Gadchiroli- 66 %, Gondia-79 %, Nagpur-84 %, Wardha-81%, Washim-53 %, Yavatmal-77%.

Meanwhile the state government has said that total water storage in all the irrigation dams including small medium and big was 15 percent in Nagpur division and 28 percent in Amravati division.

Source - http://www.outlookindia.com/