NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Monsoon rains, vital for farm output in India's trillion-dollar economy, have reached the Andaman and Nicobar islands, the first landmark in its four-month journey across the subcontinent, a senior weather official told Reuters on Monday. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has forecast the June-September monsoon would hit the mainland on May 30, two days before normal, by entering the southern state of Kerala. It also said the monsoon would appear over the Andaman Sea this week.
"The southwest monsoon has set over the Andaman and Nicobar islands and some parts of southeast Bay of Bengal. Today, we have declared the onset of southwest monsoon," G.C. Debnath, director of the weather section at the Regional Meteorological Centre in the eastern city of Kolkata, told Reuters.
After last year's driest season in nearly four decades, rains this year are expected to be 98 percent of the long-term average, raising prospects for better output of crops such as rice, corn and soybean.
Poor farm output stoked inflation, triggering widespread protests and prompting the government to drop import tax on a number of commodities, including sugar.
Due to large imports by India, the world's top sugar consumer, New York Raw sugar futures soared to a 29-year-high in February.
Now hopes of a good monsoon will help Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government to calm soaring headline inflation, which stood at 9.59 percent in April.
Farm Minister Sharad Pawar last week said his government would closely watch monsoon rains before easing a three-year-old ban on export of wheat.