Amid weak El Nino conditions, the government on Wednesday forecast a below normal monsoon for the season in 2015.
The ministry of earth sciences, however, ruled out any possibility of a pan-India drought, adding that the onset of the monsoon would not be delayed this year.
Minister for Science and Technology and Earth Sciences Harsh Vardhan told reporters that the monsoon is expected to be "93 percent normal this year".
He said there were 35 percent chances that rainfall would be between 90 and 96 percent, which he described as below average.
Where the range for a good monsoon is between 96 and 104 percent of the Long Period Average (LPA), "the all-India rainfall figure for the monsoon in 2015 is 93 percent, which is just below normal," said Laxman Singh Rathore, director general of India Meteorological Department (IMD).
The LPA of the season's rainfall over the country as a whole for the period 1951-2000 is 89 cm.
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The scientists reached this forecast after factoring in the impacts of El Nino and the Indian Ocean Dipole, the weather conditions feared to have a strong influence on the southwest monsoon this year.
The meteorological department, however, is carefully monitoring the sea surface conditions over the Pacific and Indian Ocean, from where originate the El Nino and the Dipole respectively.
Vardhan said weak conditions were prevailing over the Pacific, which could persist during June or months of southwest monsoon.
Stressing that there were 33 percent chances of a deficit monsoon, Vardhan added that the chances of average rainfall were 28 percent, while those of above-average monsoon were negligible.
The deficient monsoon this year means "there can be some districts which will be adversely affected... may result in a drought. But a pan-India drought is not being indicated", Rathore said.
Northwest India and central India are the parts that will see "adverse" effect of the shortfall in monsoon along with "some" effect on paddy and pulses, the crops of the Kharif season.
"But northwest and east India and the traditional Kharif cultivation areas should be okay. So, I don't foresee a problem at this stage," the IMD director said.
As a contingency measure, the government will stay in constant correspondence with departments and ministries concerned to work on the inputs that would be shared by the ministry of earth sciences (MoES).
The onset of the monsoon would be announced after May 10, said Rathore, who assured that the monsoon would "not be delayed".