Union Minister Jitendra Singh on Wednesday disagreed with his Cabinet colleague and Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh over the looming drought-like situation but conceded monsoon could be weak in some parts of the country.
"There is no drought-like situation. There is no change in what we are saying. Monsoon is likely to remain weak this year. However some parts will receive less rainfall," Minister of Earth Sciences Jitendra Singh told reporters on Wednesday during his visit to the Ministry office.
"Monsoon is delayed. Western India is expected to be worst-affected and a drought-like situation might prevail in some pockets," the Agriculture Minister had told reporters on Tuesday.
Asked about a possible drought-like situation, Mr Singh said, "You may ask the Agriculture Minister about it."
He added the Earth Sciences Ministry had given its forecast, one in April and second in June.
"We had said that monsoon will be 93 per cent. It will be normal in the Northeast, weak in Northwest region of the country that includes parts of Gujarat and Rajasthan."
Meanwhile, Shailesh Nayak, Secretary of Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), said the El-Nino effect would be the highest during December. However, he declined to comment on whether the global phenomenon would affect the monsoon in the sub-continent.
"Weather departments of Australia, Japan and the US have given different views on the effects of El-Nino. We are going by what the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) is saying that El-Nino's effect would be the highest during December.
"There are several factors that lead to weak monsoon and El-Nino is one of them," Nayak said.
Meanwhile the Indian Meteorological Department has said conditions continue to remain favourable for further advance of southwest monsoon into some more parts of Madhya Pradesh, remaining parts of Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Delhi, Punjab and some parts of north Rajasthan in the next 1-2 days.
Heavy to very heavy rainfall would occur at a few places over Jharkhand and at isolated places over Sub-Himalayan West Bengal, Sikkim isolated places over Gangetic West Bengal, Bihar, Odisha, Assam, Meghalaya, coastal Karnataka and Kerala, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said.
Many parts of Northern India and the national capital also received rain spells. The IMD, however, did not declare the rain spells as arrival of monsoon and said they would study data from meteorological centers from neighbouring states before making the official announcement.
"The winds are no doubt like the monsoon ones and they are also flowing from the Bay of Bengal. We would, however, take data from our weather stations from Western Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Rajasthan, study the rainfall, wind patterns before declaring the arrival of monsoon in the national capital," IMD Director B P Yadav said.
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