Sohna (Haryana), July 28 - The season's first good shower came too late for Mohan Singh's rice nursery where the saplings are dead. His bajra crop is ruined too, as his pump could not raise water from the falling aquifer below his farm. He hopes his sugarcane patch will revive now.

Monday's shower marginally reduced the 55 percent monsoon rainfall deficit in Haryana's Gurgaon district where this village is located, but it will not be enough to get Mohan and his neighbours out of debt.

'I can do nothing for the rice any more,' Mohan told IANS while he worked feverishly to chop out small channels so that as much of the rainwater would get to his sugarcane patch as possible.

'It's been more than 40 days since the rice saplings were planted; so even if some of them are alive, they are too big to be transplanted to the main farm,' Mohan explained. 'It's a complete loss.'

So is his bajra patch as the coarse grain does need water throughout its growth cycle though it does not need a lot of it.

'I could have grown my bajra even with this low rainfall if I had been able to irrigate my patch a little,' Mohan rued.