Chandigarh, July 19: Rains continued to lash many parts of north India, with Hisar turning out to be the wettest, recording a rainfall of 109.8 mm. The other places which received heavy rains till early morning included Ambala, Panchkula, Kalka, Kurukshetra and Karnal, according to the meteorological department here. Jammu recorded a rainfall of 8.1 mm whereas Ludhiana registered (1 mm) Patiala 25.4 mm, Nangal dam (4.6 mm), Mohali and Ropar recorded 7 mm of rainfall each since yesterday.

Chandigarh had received 6.4 mm rainfall till morning with the met department predicting more rains tomorrow. Many places in hill state of Himachal Pradesh like Sundernagar received 10.1 mm of rainfall followed by Shimla which recorded 8.5 mm rainfall, Kasol 3.1 mm, Kahu 1 mm and Bhuntar 0.4 mm.

The Met department has forecasted moderate rains at many places in Himachal Pradesh while light to moderate rain has been predicted at a few places in Punjab and Haryana over the next two days.

Meanwhile, Haryana's agriculture minister Jaswinder Singh Sandhu said that rains will prove useful when transplantation of paddy takes place apart from proving beneficial to standing crops of sugarcane, cotton, paddy pulses and fodder crops.


He said that widespread rains during the last few days has brightened the prospects of ensuing a good Kharif crops in the state.
So far paddy transplantation has been carried out over an area of 7.40 lakh hectares, he said adding that Bajra, guar and fodder crops have been sown and sowing of maize, Kharif, oilseeds and pulse crops like Arhar, Moong, Urad, Soybean, Til, groundnut and castor would be completed.


Bureau Report