India likely to receive near-normal monsoon in 2019, says IMD

India is likely to receive near-normal monsoon rains in 2019, the country’s official weather forecaster said on Monday, easing concerns over farm output and economic growth in Asia’s third-biggest economy where half the farmland lacks irrigation.

The government-run India Meteorological Department (IMD)'s first long-range forecast for the south-west monsoon on Monday said that El-Nino conditions will weaken in coming months.

The onset of the south-west monsoon over India around the end of May — which delivers about 70 percent of India’s annual rainfall between June and September — is critical for the farm sector that accounts for about 14 percent of India’s $2 trillion economy and employs more than half of the country’s 1.3 billion people.