The report notes that steady progress of rainfall, especially in northwest and southern regions, should benefit the sowing progress and reservoir levels
The divergence in rainfall distribution implies a near-term supply-shock in prices of key crops that are produced in affected areas, due to crop damage, as per a report by ICICI Bank. India’s monsoon continued to progress well, with cumulative rainfall coming in at 6 per cent above long period average (LPA) as of 21 July 2025.
However, the rainfall surplus has reduced compared with the 9 per cent surplus seen last week, driven by lower rains across central and northeast regions. On an absolute basis, the spatial distribution of the rainfall has remained skewed with northwest India (29 per cent above LPA) and central India (22 per cent above LPA) receiving excess rains, while southern India (5 per cent below LPA) and northeast India (23 per cent below LPA) are witnessing deficient rains.
The report noted that Bihar (42 per cent below LPA), Telangana (22 per cent below LPA), Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Punjab, and Uttar Pradesh have received lower rains. Even though rainfall in some major kharif-producing states is below LPA, kharif sowing so far is up 4.1 per cent year-on-year (YoY) as on 18 July 2025.
The report emphasised that out of the normal sowing of 109.7 million hectare, 70.8 million hectare of sowing has already been completed. Last week, area sown was 59.8 million hectare. Higher kharif sowing is led by coarse cereals (13.6 per cent YoY), rice (12.4 per cent YoY), and pulses (2.3 per cent YoY). On the other hand, sowing of jute and mesta, cotton, and oilseeds is lagging.
Even as the rainfall surplus has reduced, there has been steady progress of rainfall especially in northwest and southern regions, which should benefit the sowing progress and reservoir levels, as pointed out by the report.
