With reference to the cultivation of Kharif crops in India in the last five years, consider the following statements : I. Area under rice cultivation is the highest. II. Area under the cultivation of jowar is more than that of oilseeds. III. Area of cotton cultivation is more than that of sugarcane. IV. Area under sugarcane cultivation has steadily decreased. Which of the statements given above are correct ?

Statements I and III are correct, so the answer is A.

• I (correct): Rice is the largest kharif crop by area, roughly 40 million hectares, grown across the eastern, southern and coastal belts where monsoon rainfall is heavy.
• II (wrong): Kharif oilseeds (groundnut, soybean, sesamum, castor, nigerseed) together cover far more area than jowar, a coarse cereal concentrated in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Rajasthan. Kharif jowar covers only about 4 to 5 million hectares.
• III (correct): Cotton, grown mainly in Gujarat, Maharashtra, Telangana and Punjab, covers around 12 million hectares, while sugarcane covers around 5 million hectares.
• IV (wrong): Sugarcane area has not fallen steadily. It rose in the mid-2010s and then fluctuated, so the word steadily makes this false.

Core concept: kharif and rabi classification by sowing season and monsoon dependence. Mains link: GS3 on cropping pattern shifts towards pulses and oilseeds, and the role of MSP. Trap: treating sugarcane as a typical kharif crop and judging jowar by its importance in the diet rather than by its actual area.