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HIMACHAL PRADESH

Geographic position and climate

Himachal Pradesh lies between 31°22’40” and 33°12’40” N latitudes and 75°45’55” and
79°04’20” E longitudes, bounded by Jammu & Kashmir in the north, Punjab and Haryana in the
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south, Uttrakhand in the south-east and Tibet in the east. It has an area of 55,673 km and a
population of 68.5 million distributed in 17,495 inhabited villages and towns. Administratively
the state is divided into 12 districts, 55 sub divisions, 82 tehsils and 35 sub tehsils. In Himachal
Pradesh, there is much diversification in climatic conditions due to variation in elevation (350 to
almost 7000 m) and aspect. The climatic conditions vary from hot and sub-humid tropical in the
southern low tracts to temperate, cold alpine and glacial in the northern and eastern high
mountains. The mean annual rainfall ranges from 350 mm to 3500 mm. About 70% of the annual
rainfall is received during July to September, about 20% from October to March and 10% during
April to June. The climate of the state is mainly humid semi-arid to hot semi-arid in eastern part
and semi-arid to hot semi-arid in western part. Average rainfall of the state is 800 to 1600 mm,
majority of which received from south-west monsoon during the month of June to September.
The state experiences average maximum temperature (38 to 44 °C) during the month of April
and May and average minimum temperature (7 to 13 °C) during the month of December and
January. Only 75% of the total reporting area is available for cultivation. Out of this area, net
area sown and current fallows account for only 13%.

Soils

The soils of Himachal Pradesh can broadly be divided into nine groups on the basis of their
development and physicochemical properties like alluvial, brown hill, brown earths, brown
forest, grey wooded or podzolic, grey brown podzolic, planosolic, humus and iron podzols, and
alpine humus mountain skeletal soils. The soils of the state are acidic to alkaline in nature and
the value of soil pH ranges from 4.78 to 8.7 with average value of 6.7. The status of soil organic
carbon is medium to high and it varies from 0.1 to 3.1%. Soils of the state are low to medium in
available nitrogen, medium to high in available phosphorus and medium in available potassium,
in general. Available iron, manganese and copper in the soils of the state ranges from 0.82-71.7,
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0.56-59.6 and 0.07-11.36 mg kg , respectively. There is about 1.5, 0.1 and 1.2% deficiency in
iron, manganese and copper, respectively.

Crops and cropping systems

The major crops of the state are wheat, maize, rice, barley, pulses, oilseeds, vegetables (seed and
off-season) and potato. Among cereals, wheat and maize are the most important crops, followed
by rice. Gram is dominant pulse crop. Sesame occupies the maximum area among oilseeds. Cash
crops are also becoming important, since fair amounts of potato, ginger, tea, and peas come from