Despite the satisfactory position as far as the areal mean rainfall for the country as a whole, the deficit rainfall scenario persists over the states of North East India, West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh and parts of Karnataka, Kerala, Haryana, Punjab, Delhi and Chandigarh. The state wise data of Rainfall across the country during the current monsoon season as of 21st August 2010 is presented in Annexure.

The effect of long dry spell on crops in West Bengal, especially in South Bengal is still persisting mainly in 9 districts (Purulia, Bankura, Mursidabad, Birbhum, Burdwan, Hoogly, West Midnapur, Nadia and Malda) during this week. Most of the districts in Bihar and Jharkhand have also experienced adverse impact of persistent deficient rainfall situation. Due to long dry spell and erratic distribution of rainfall in these States, sowing / transplanting as well as other agricultural operations have been affected adversely. Rice seedlings at many places in these states either became over aged or wilted. The transplanted rice crops, which were established and at tillering stage, also faced severe moisture stress condition. Transplanting of rice could not be undertaken in considerable area due to deficient rainfall in affected districts of south Bengal. In Uttar Pradesh, impact of dry conditions is still prevailing in North eastern Plain Zone (Bahraich, Shrawasti, Gonda, Kushinagar, Siddharthnagar, Maharajganj), which showed adverse effect on 50-60% of standing rice crop and 10-15% of maize crops. Many other districts of Uttar Pradesh (Ambedkar Nagar, Ballia, Banda, Barabanki, Basti, Deoria, Faizabad, Fatehpur, Jaunpur, Kanpur Dehat, Lucknow, Mau, RaiBarelly, Sant Ravidas Nagar, Unnao in East UP and Agra, Aligarh, Baghpat, Meerut, Muzzaffarnagar in West UP) also experienced long dry spell during last few weeks. However, due to occurrence of some rainfall during last week in some districts of these States, condition has improved for sowing of some alternate short duration and less moisture loving crops under contingency plan.