Pressmediaofindia
Related Articles
02-07-2025
Bureau Report + Agencies
NEW DELHI/ MUMBAI: India is likely to get above-average monsoon rainfall, critical to the economy, in July after receiving 9% above-normal rains in June, a senior weather department official said on Monday.
The monsoon is the lifeblood of India’s nearly $4 trillion economy, delivering almost 70% of the rainfall needed to water farms and replenishing aquifers and reservoirs.
Nearly half of India’s farmland is not irrigated and depends on the annual June-September rains for crop growth.
All regions, except northeastern states and the southern states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala, are likely to receive rainfall equating to more than 106% of the 50-year average in July, Mrutyunjay Mohapatra, director-general of the India Meteorological Department (IMD), told a virtual news conference.
Soybean and cotton-growing states such as Maharashtra, Gujarat, and Madhya Pradesh are likely to receive above-average rainfall, as are rice-growing northern and most eastern states, according to Mohapatra.
India received 9% more rainfall than the long-period average for June, as the monsoon covered the entire country nine days ahead of its normal schedule.
Farmers usually start planting summer-sown crops such as rice, corn, cotton, soybeans and sugarcane after the arrival of monsoon rains.
The early arrival of monsoon and above-average rainfall has accelerated planting of summer-sown crops, farm ministry data showed on Monday. Farmers had planted 26.2 million hectares with summer-sown crops by Monday, up 11.3% on the same period last year.
Rice was planted on 3.5 million hectares, larger than last year’s 2.4 million hectares. Farmers had planted another 4.9 million hectares with oilseeds, including soybeans, up from 4 million hectares a year ago.
Planting will gain further momentum in the coming weeks as recent rainfall has improved soil moisture levels, said a Mumbai-based dealer with a global trade house.
“July rainfall is very crucial for summer crops. We can expect good yields if the monsoon delivers surplus rainfall in July,” the dealer said.
The monsoon followed rapid advance till May 29 and covered south India and Northeast India. It further progress started on from June 16. With rapid advance, it covered most parts of the country except some parts of Northwest Rajasthan, WUP, South Punjab and south Haryana, Delhi by June 26.
Rainfall received in June 2025
India received 180 mm of rainfall in June 2025 which is above the normal range of 165.3 mm, Dr. Mohapatra said. However, less than normal rainfall was witnessed in East and Northeast India with only 272.9 mm against the normal range of 328.4 mm.
Earlier on May 27, the IMD had predicted an above normal level of monsoon in India for 2025. The southwest monsoon seasonal rainfall over the country as a whole is likely to be 106% of the Long Period Average (LPA) with a model error of ±4%, indicating that above normal rainfall is most likely over the country as a whole during the monsoon season (June to September), 2025, it stated.
The rainfall outlook matches very well over many regions of the country, except for some regions over Central India and peninsular region, the IMD said.
Frequency of very heavy rainfall
The IMD stated that there have been 70 instances reported of heavy rainfall in the month of June 2025 in comparison to 51 in last year.
