New Delhi : India’s monsoon, crucial for Asia’s third largest economy, is likely to be a robust and healthy one this year provided there isn’t a surprise El Nino phenomenon, the top India Meteorological Department official said on Wednesday.
Monsoon rains, the lifeblood for India’s farm-dependent $2.6 trillion economy, arrive on the southern tip of Kerala state around June 1 and retreat from the desert state of Rajasthan by September.
India’s 263 million farmers wait for monsoon rains to plant crops such as rice, cane, corn, cotton and soybean because nearly half of the country’s farmland lacks irrigation. Farming output makes up just less than 14 percent of India’s economy but the sector employs more than half of the country’s 1.3 billion population.
Plentiful monsoon rains could lift agricultural and wider economic growth and keep food prices and overall inflation subdued.
