Paddy sowing picked up pace during the week ended August 4, with nearly 28.30 million hectares brought under the crop, up 3.40 per cent from the same period last year.
Nearly 71 per cent of the usual area has been covered this season. Paddy is sown in around 40 million hectares across the country.
An improvement in acreage, coupled with higher stocks than the buffer norm, should help in soothing some of the concerns about rice this year.
With monsoon expected to remain vigorous over the next few weeks over states like Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Odisha, experts say more area could come under the paddy in the days to come.
However, the rains over the next few weeks, particularly over the water-stressed areas, will be crucial to get a good harvest.
Data shows that for pulses, whose sowing was delayed due to insufficient rains, considerable area has been covered though the acreage for arhar and urad is still around 8 per cent and 13.58 per cent less than the same period last year.
Arhar and urad acreage is down mainly in the main growing belts of Karnataka and Maharashtra though, the monsoon has picked up strongly in these parts since the last few weeks.
Overall, kharif crops have been sown in around 91.54 million hectares till August 4 which is marginally less than the area covered during the same period last year.
However, for several policy makers, the main concern will be the trajectory of monsoon in the next few weeks.
The India Meteorological Department (IMD), in its latest monsoon update earlier this week, said that the southwest monsoon in the remaining months of August and September is expected to be ‘normal’ but on the negative side as rains in August is projected to be ‘below normal’ at less than 94 per cent of the Long Period Average (LPA).
LPA for the month of August is 254.9 millimetres while the LPA for August and September combined is 422.8 millimetres. August accounts for almost 30 per cent of the seasonal rainfall.