July rains have failed badly only twice in 113 years, but here's why the govt is spooked

At just 74.4 mm,India has received 40 per cent less rainfall in the period June 1-25 comparedto the normal 124.5 mm, implying that the monsoon has failed in the first month of its arrival.According to a private weather agency Skymet, India has seen this kind of shortage of rain 12 times in the last 113 years, which means it has witnessed a huge deficit of rain once in every decade in the past.

The newly elected Narendra Modi government will definitely have a very tough time if the monsoon fails to recover in the remaining three months - July, August and September. However,data from 1901 shows that over the past 113years the country had nearly 30 percent deficiency in June rainfallduring 11 monsoons.

Only in twoof these 11 monsoons, 1901 and 1905, the deficiency in July exceeded 10 percent. In all other cases, July rainfallwas more than 95 percent, according to the Indian Meteorological Department.

[caption id=“attachment_89314” align=“aligncenter” width=“600”] Source: Motilal Oswal[/caption]

The table shows that while a serious deficiency in June coincided with similar poor rainfall in July only in early 1900s. However, it caused serious overall deficit for the entire season during two other years, i.e., 1965 and 2009.

The rainfall received in June is close to just 17% of the total rainfall received during the June-September period.

The almost regular monsoon after a dry June may explain the IMD expectation that rainfall will revive in early July.The national capital Delhi and other states in the north-western part of India are likely to get rain from 5 July. Odisha and Telangana states are also likely to receive heavy rain during the same period.

But brokerage Motilal Oswal is not so convinced by the optimism shown by IMD.

“Even if we assume June 2014 rainfall would be only 30%deficient (compared with 40% currently), along with IMD’s forecast for July andAugust, this would imply a 10% above normal rainfall during September for IMD’soverall rainfall forecast for the season at 93% to come true. This is highly unlikelygiven that El Nino is expected to strike during the second part of season. Thus,overall rainfall situation and outlook remains challenging,” it said in a note today.

This may explain why the government has alreadytaken a few other measures to prevent a spike in food inflation cool such as crack down on hoarders, set a minimum exportprice of$300 per million tonne for onion, suggestedto states to delist fruits andvegetables from Agricultural Produce Market Committeeand withdrawal of export incentives on milk. Besides it hasalso reportedly planned to offload 5 million tonnes of rice, i.e., about a quarterof its state stockpiles, at subsidized rates.

As Subir Gokarn, director of research, Brookings India and former deputy governor at Reserve Bank of India, writes in a column in Business Standard, “the underperformance during June does not allow us to predict that rainfall will be deficient during July. On the other hand, it does not guarantee that rainfall will be normal either, so it’s best to be prepared… At this point, the government’s best course of action is to anticipate worst-case scenarios and put mitigative measures in place.”