'Farmers in most parts of

irrigation-deficit northeast have not been able to sow paddy seeds due to lack of sufficient water in the fields,' he said.

The worst deficiency of rain was recorded in 2001 between June and August when several parts of the region reeled under a drought-like situation.

'The agriculture and horticulture department officials in close coordination with the ICAR scientists have been monitoring the situation day by day and trying hard to get the maximum benefit from the existing irrigation facilities,' said Subrata Shiv, an agricultural expert working for the Tripura government.

He said that the sowing of both autumn and winter crops would be affected by the shortage of rainfall.

'The situation will be alarming if the rains don't come in the next one week,' Shiv told IANS.

The soaring temperatures coupled with high humidity and power cut has thrown life out of gear in most parts of the northeast in the past few days.

'We have been forced to slash power supply because there is a fall in generation and we decided to go in for power cuts as we do not get electricity as per our demand,' said Dipak Ganguly, chairman and managing director of the Tripura power corporation.

'The power supply in the entire northeastern region has been reduced due to a fall in generation of the hydro-electric projects in the region,' said Ganguly.

(Sujit Chakraborty can be contacted at sujit.c@ians.in)