punjab

Updated: Sep 21, 2016 18:57 IST

Punjab and Haryana, the grain bowl states of the country, received scanty monsoon rains this year for the second consecutive year, with deficit standing at 25% each between June and September. Chandigarh, the common capital of the two states, also received poor rains this year, with a deficit of 46%, an official of meteorological department here told PTI on Wednesday.

Between June 1 and September 20 period this year, the union territory of Chandigarh had received a rainfall of 428.6 mm as against normal of 794.7 mm, leaving a deficit of 46%. Last year, Chandigarh had received 35% less rains than normal while the deficit during the same period for Punjab and Haryana stood at 31% and 38%, respectively.

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In the said period this year, Punjab had received a rainfall of 346.3 mm as against normal of 461.5 mm, leaving a deficit of 25%, the official said. Likewise, Haryana received 331.7 mm of rains against normal of 441 mm, leaving a deficit of 25%, he said.

Among the worst-affected district of Punjab are Ferozepur, Patiala, Fatehgarh Sahib, Hoshiarpur, Jalandhar and Ludhiana while comparatively the districts which had good rains included Faridkot, Gurdaspur, Rupnagar and Bathinda.

Similarly in Haryana, several northern districts received poor rains including Ambala, Kurukshetra and Panchkula. Panipat, Rohtak and Sonipat also received scanty rains while the districts which lie closer to Delhi including Gurgaon, Faridabad and Jhajjar comparatively had good rainfall.

In Punjab, Ferozepur had a deficit of 69%, Patiala had a deficit of 58%, and Fatehgarh Sahib 50%.