Monsoon to hit Kerala coast on May 30

New Delhi: India's southwest monsoon rains, the country's economic lifeline, are expected to hit the Kerala coast on May 30, two days ahead of schedule, a top weather department official said on Monday.

"The monsoon will onset over the Kerala coast on May 30," M Rajeevan, a senior official at the India Meteorological Department told Reuters.

The annual southwest monsoon is key to the economic health of India's $700-billion economy, with the farm sector generating more than a fifth of the country's gross domestic product. Nearly two-thirds of India's billion-plus people earn income from agriculture, so the timely arrival and even distribution of the annual rains play a major role in determining eventual demand in the wider economy.

Weather officials in April forecast this year's rains at 93 per cent of the long-term average, with a 22 per cent probability of being deficient. That "just below normal" prediction failed to rattle markets and most analysts said they still expected Asia's third-largest economy to grow between 7.5 and 8.0 per cent in 2006 or 2007.

Rajeevan said the department stood by its earlier statement. "Conditions have become favourable for onset of the southwest monsoon over the southeast Bay of Bengal and Nicobar Islands around May 18 or 19, near its normal date," he said.

Most of India's farms are dependent on rain in the absence of modern irrigation facilities. The monsoons begin around June 1 in Kerala before spreading across the vast South Asian country over a four-month period.

Another weather department official said there had been wide pre-monsoon showers in coastal areas of southern Andhra Pradesh state, Karnataka and eastern Orissa.

In 2002, a severe drought hit many parts of the country, lowering agricultural production. India witnessed the best monsoon in more than a decade in 2003, helping the country to reap bumper grain and oilseed harvests and lifting economic growth.

In 2005, the monsoon boosted farm output, helping the economy expand by more than 8.1 per cent in the year that ended in March 2006.