India's weather office is likely to issue a revised monsoon season forecast later this week and ministers will meet again on the drought after a review of affected areas, Farm Minister Sharad Pawar said on Tuesday.
The June-September monsoon rains, the main source of irrigation for 55 percent of India's farmlands, have been 20 percent below average so far, triggering concerns of poor farm output and higher food inflation.
Pawar said the country had adequate seeds to implement contigency plans for lower rainfall and food stocks are more than adequate to meet requirements.
He was speaking after chairing a meeting of the Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) on drought on Tuesday, as New Delhi finally bathed in its first serious rainfall of this monsoon and power cuts blamed in part on high demand for farm irrigation paralysed north India for the second day running.
The EGoM on drought was meeting for the first time since 2009, the driest monsoon season in nearly four decades. That drought forced India to import sugar at sky-rocketing rates and benchmark New York prices surged to a record.
