As the table shows, bajra cultivation appears to have been the most dependent upon rainfall, with an elasticity of 0.92 for production and 0.65 for yield, with respect to rainfall. Since bajra is one of the more important coarse cereals produced in kharif, and since this is also one which has experienced a sharp drop in rainfall in 1999, this result assumes significance. The other crop which shows a very high responsiveness in groundnut, with elasticities of 0.81 and 0.54 for production and yield respectively.
 
The major kharif crop, rice, also appears to have a relatively high degree of responsiveness to rainfall. The elasticity of output with respect to rainfall was nearly 0.5, while that of yield was more than 0.3 - important because so much of kharif output depends upon this single crop. However, since as was observed from Chart 3a, the fluctuations in the crop-specific monsoon rainfall for rice have been relatively low and increasingly dampened, this may not have mattered so very much in the recent past. However, if there is for some reason a sharp drop in rice area-specific rainfall in the coming monsoon, this could have serious implications for rice production.
 
Most of the other kharif crops appear to have rather low responsiveness to rainfall indicators, suggesting that production and yield are largely determined by other factors. But it would not be safe to conclude from this that cultivation of these crops is based on greater reliance on irrigation or new techniques which make the impact of rainfall minimal. Such a conclusion is immediately refuted by the example of jowar, for which the elasticities of production and yield with respect to rainfall are near zero, but which is still mainly cultivated through rain-fed traditional techniques.
 
So what are the prospects if monsoon rainfall does turn out to be below normal in 2000, as is being predicted in certain quarters? This depends on whether the low correlation between the North and West on the one hand and the South and East on the other persists, and on how much the all-India monsoon drops. If the other parameters observed during the 1990s continues, the answer seems to be that there is no reason to expect any catastrophic drop in output even if the prediction of the Centre for Mathematical Modelling, Bangalore, as regards the all-India monsoon comes true. There is reason for gearing up contingency plans, particularly in Karnataka, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, in addition to strengthening current efforts in Gujarat, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh. But with adequate, and maybe even excessive, stocks of rice, wheat, cotton, edible oils and sugar, there is certainly no case for panic about the availability of these essential goods. The real reason for concern is different. This is that the authorities today appear to be significantly less concerned with the direct victims of drought, and that the system of contingency planning has been run down so much in the course of the liberalisation years that sheer incompetence in the management of what has actually been a rather minor drought episode during the current year has had to be played up as the worst in a century. It is this run-down management system and the supposed all-prevailing virtues of market forces which will really be on test if the weather gods are less favourable to the liberalisers than they have been so far.