Crop planting up 2.6% from year ago: farm ministry
NEW DELHI: Crop planting has grown 2.6% from a year ago, government data on Friday showed, with increase in acreage seen mostly in cotton, sugarcane, rice and pulses.
With the planting season at its fag end, crops now cover 87.82 million hectares, or 83% of the targeted acreage, agriculture ministry data showed. While the area under coarse cereal is similar to the previous year’s, there’s a 10% decrease in acreage for oilseed.
The area under cotton has seen the maximum increase in planting. It has risen by 18.51% from a year ago to cover 11.43 million hectares.
Meanwhile, 28 million hectares have come under rice, up 4.91% from last year. Acreage under this crop has seen an increase in Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal. This kharif season, rice will be planted on 39.69 million hectares.
Overall, the area under pulses is 3.71% higher than the previous year at 12.13 million hectares. However, planting of arhar has fallen by 17% and that of kulthi by 57%.
The area under coarse cereals, which includes maize, bajra, ragi, small millets and maize, has posted an increase of 0.09% over the previous year to cover 15.70 million hectares. Apart from bajra, the area for all other coarse cereals is below normal.
Oilseeds planting has seen a drop. It has fallen 10.03% from the previous year and now covers 14.89 million hectares. The area under groundnut, soyabean, seseamum and sunflower has seen a significant decrease from the previous year. Planting of soyabean, an important commodity in the edible oil basket, has also decreased by 10.39%, being planted on 9.89 million hectares, while groundnut was planted on 3.49 million hectare—a fall of 13% from a year ago.
Sugarcane planting has increased by 8.92% to covering 4.97 million hectares.
Meanwhile, the water levels in India’s 91 major reservoirs rose 11% in the last one week, as monsoon rains lashed Gujarat, Rajasthan and most of north India. It was, however, lower than the 10-year average.
On Thursday, these dams together held 67.683 billion cubic metres (bcm) of water, 4% higher than last year and 3% less than the 10-year average, according to data from the Central Water Commission (CWC). Last week, the capacity was 60.906 bcm.
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