Meteorologists have predicted a normal rainfall for the entire country for the ninth consecutive year. In Orissa, the south-west monsoon has already arrived in the state on time, on June 13.

The state agriculture department has set a higher target for foodgrain production for the kharif season in view of the encouraging rainfall. As against 66.06 lakh tonnes of foodgrain production in the 1997 kharif season, the target for this year has been set at 82.25 lakh tonnes.

The foodgrain targets include 73 lakh tonnes of rice and 4.75 lakh tonnes of pulses. The target for oilseeds has been fixed at 4.45 lakh tonnes and commercial crop like cotton, jute, and mesta at 5.86 lakh bales.

The state agriculture secretary, UK Patnaik, is hopeful of achieving this year's kharif targets. "I am quite confident that the state would harvest a bumper crop this year," he said.

"However," he said, "the heatwave and the absence of pre-monsoon showers this year has prevented the farmers from preparing the farmlands for sowing. The commencement of operations is being slightly delayed this year even though the monsoon has arrived timely."

"The scarcity of MOP fertiliser is likely to effect the production this year too," he cautioned.

"The special feature of this year is that the monsoon arrived timely up to Orissa and covered the entire state on the same day," the director of Bhubaneswar Meteorology Office, OP Singh, told The Financial Express.

"Even if the expectation is for a normal rainfall, the predictions are slightly better than last year,'' he said.

According to predictions rainfall is likely to be about 99 per cent with four per cent model error as against 96 per cent of last year.

Last year the monsoon arrived about five or six days late and the distribution of rainfall was quite detrimental to agriculture. While in July and August the rainfall was better it was deficient in June andSeptember."

"The timely onset of monsoon this year promises an evenly spread of rainfall over the season," Singh said.

The state government plans to encourage farmers to plant high yielding varieties of paddy during this kharif. The state's target is to cover 39.50 lakh hectares under paddy cultivation. Out of this about 60 per cent would be covered with the high yielding variety. The state will supply 2.5 lakh quintals of HYV paddy seeds this season.

According to the state agriculture director, Tara Dutt, the farmers have shown keen interest to purchase HYV paddy seeds at the outset of the monsoon.

The state government has already supplied two lakh quintals of HYV seeds. The requirement for the entire state is around 28 lakh quintals.

The state horticulture directorate is also gearing up to take advantage of the timely arrival of the monsoon. The directorate is planning to encourage planting of high-yielding varieties of tamarind, palm and amla besides mango, coconut, banana, orange, custard apple,lemon and cashew this year in about 25,000 hectares during the kharif season.

The directorate also proposes to plant saplings in about 22,000 hectares.