NEW DELHI, 29 JULY: The spectre of drought looms large over major parts of northern and western India following a poor monsoon that has already hit sowing of kharif crops and left farmers and livestock in distress. Shortage of drinking water and an adverse impact on the prices of fruits, vegetables, pulses, sugar has been felt in several areas. Livestock has been hit by fodder shortage. The situation is grim in Karnataka, Punjab, Haryana, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Rajasthan. There has been shortfall in paddy sowing in Nadia, South 24-Paraganas, Murshidabad, Birbhum, Bankura and West Midnapore districts in West Bengal as well. A worried Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar, who has called a meeting of Empowered Group of Ministers here on Tuesday to deal with the situation, today expressed concern over deficient rains. He told a function at Thane near Mumbai that the country may face a “serious situation” if it does not rain in the next two months. Sowing of pulses and coarse cereals (like maize, jowar and bajra) has been affected the most. Although paddy area is also down by 18 lakh hectares so far, there is still hope that the shortfall will be overcome as paddy season extends till August. According to weather office data up to 27 July, while the all-India average of rainfall deficiency is 21 per cent, Saurashtra and Kutch regions in Gujarat are short by 78 per cent, followed by Haryana, Chandigarh and Delhi (71 %) and Punjab (67 %). The government has conceded that production in 2012-13 would be lower than last year's record output. The sowing area of kharif crops has declined by 10 per cent so far at 66.82 million hectare. Coarse cereals are worst affected with 23 per cent shortfall, followed by pulses (18 %), paddy (9 %) and cotton (7 %).