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Crucial monsoon rains seen normal this year

India's southwest monsoon, vital to the country's economic performance, is expected to be normal in the season beginning June, a state-run scientific agency said in a forecast.

"As per criteria of India Meteorological Department, both the years 2002 and 2003 are likely to be normal monsoon years," the Bangalore-based Centre for Mathematical Modelling and Computer Simulation said.

"It is noteworthy that all these experimental forecasts, generated well ahead of the season and several of them two seasons in advance, have been fairly accurate," the centre said on its Web site referring to its forecasts over the last seven years.

More than 70 per cent of India's one billion people depend on agriculture for a livelihood. It contributes 25 per cent to the country's gross domestic product.

Good monsoon rains are vital to a good harvest, which helps agricultural production and boosts consumption and demand.

The south-west monsoon normally arrives over India in the early part of June and lasts through September. India has had 13 consecutive years of normal monsoon rains leading to bumper grains output.

The centre said over the past one hundred years or so, the longest spell of consecutive normal monsoon years was 13.

"We are thus at the edge of a shift to drought/excess year. However, our forecasts for both 2002 and 2003 are quite close to the long-term mean," it said.

The centre adopts a technique different from the conventional methodology of assessing atmospheric and oceanic processes used by the IMD, to forecast the monsoon.

The IMD is expected to come out with its official monsoon forecast on May 25.

S R Kalsi, a senior IMD official told Reuters that a depression had formed in the South Arabian sea and these kinds of changes normally developed in the pre-monsoon season.

"It is likely to move in a westerly, north-westerly direction," Kalsi said. "The IMD is monitoring the situation."

An official at the weather office in Trivandrum, capital of Kerala, said the region had been experiencing rains for the past couple of days but these were not linked to the onset of the monsoon.

The southwest monsoon breaks over the Kerala coast normally on June 1 and spreads to other parts of the country.

India is counting on good monsoon rains to shore up its sagging industrial sector, which has been hit by poor demand, and bolster economic growth.

The southwest monsoon rains provide 80 per cent of the country's total rainfall.

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