The government, it seems, has not learnt any lessons from the 2009 drought, which adversely impacted rice production, even as kharif crop sowing for 2010 has started.
The 2009 drought reduced rice production by around 16 million tonnes and forced the government to take a hard look at the national food security bill it was planning to introduce in Parliament.
Experts said though projections by the Met department suggest a normal monsoon trajectory this year, this pertains to the date (May 30) when the South-West monsoon hits the Kerala coast. How the monsoon gets distributed over the mainland is yet to be seen, said an official.
Sources said notwithstanding the fact that around 60 per cent of Indian agriculture still depends on the monsoon, not much effort has been made to prepare for an eventuality like 2009 when over 300 districts had declared droughts due to deficient rainfall.
Though the government had gone through the ritual of planning the kharif 2010 strategy in March this year, progress on expanding areas under rice cultivation, enhancing the yield through adoption of short-duration and location-specific varieties, and increasing irrigation coverage in the eastern region, including states like Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Orissa, eastern Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, is abysmal, said sources.