After a few days’ delay, the southwest monsoon has reached Delhi, along with a few other regions of North and Central India, covering almost 80 per cent of the country and bringing cumulative rain in June to near normal.
A revival in the rains, particularly over the main pulses- and oilseeds-growing regions of North, Central and West India, should spur planting kharif crops, which, till June 24, was almost 24 per cent less than in the same period last year.
The delay in the onset of the rains has started pushing up the prices of select varieties of pulses because