Aug 27 2009 6:45PM
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NEW DELHI, Aug 27 (Reuters) - India's monsoon rains were 5 percent below average in the week to August 26, coming in close to normal for the second successive week after a prolonged dry spell, the Meteorological Department said on Thursday.
In the previous week rainfall was 2 percent below normal.
Rainfall since June 1, the beginning of the monsoon season, was 25 percent below normal, improving slightly from a deficit of 26 percent a week earlier.
In the week to Aug. 26, rainfall was less than half of normal in the soybean-producing central region and 91 percent short of average in the cane producing region of western Uttar Pradesh.
"The monsoon scenario is distressing," said P. Chengal Reddy, secretary general, Consortium of Indian Farmers Association.
Total rainfall so far this monsoon season is more than 20 percent below normal in 23 of India's 36 weather zones, on track to be worse than the drought of 2002.
That year overall rainfall was 19 percent below average and 22 weather zones reported a deficient monsoon. The country's 2002/03 crop output fell 18 percent, with the summer crop down 22 percent and the winter crop falling by 13 percent.
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