Though Pawar was forthcoming in acknowledging the situation, the officials at Krishi Bhavan continued playing hide and seek by obfuscating the data regarding the progress of sowing of kharif crops. For the second consecutive week, the officials held back the release of statistics pertaining to the weekly region-wise and crop-wise progress of kharif crops. Riding on the progress of kharif crop in central and eastern India, which witnessed rainfall last week, the ministry obfuscated the data by presenting a cumulative sowing pattern to present a rosy picture. The ministry also refrained from furnishing year-on-year cumulative comparative data, and presented a comparison with the last week. “This is all that the ministry has to present to the public,” Agriculture Ministry spokesperson Manoj Pandey said when asked about region-wise and crop-wise data on a year-on-year basis.

According to the data released, the sowing of paddy crop has increased by 95 per cent over the last week. The statistics pointed out that the coverage of oilseeds by the end of this week jumped by 58 per cent as compared to sowing till last Friday. While the sowing of coarse cereals went up by 150 per cent, the sowing of pulses went up by 90 per cent over the last week.

The officials may try to paint a rosy picture, but the Met department has pointed towards a 34 per cent shortfall in seasonal rainfall for the entire country, with 25 of 36 sub-divisions witnessing deficient or scanty rainfall.