RAIN, RAIN, DON'T GO AWAY: A man ferrying schoolchildren home on a rainy day in Mumbai. The south-west monsoon, which accounts for around 80 per cent of India's annual rainfall, has been slow to show up. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

So far, the signs have not been good as the south-west monsoon, which accounts for around 80 per cent of the country's annual rainfall, has been slow to show up.

The monsoon usually sweeps the subcontinent from June to September, providing a lifeline to the country's 235 million farmers.

Despite assurances by weather experts that the rains will come, the government is not breathing easy.

A good monsoon is particularly important for the Congress-led coalition government as that would bring down food prices and ease inflationary pressures.

Currently, the government is battling inflation, which is running at a 13-year high of 11.98 per cent.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister P. Chidambaram have said that prices will moderate after a good monsoon.

Bread-and-butter issues mostly dominate Indian elections. Failure of the monsoon would push up food prices and result in a possible voter backlash against the government at the polls.

A timely monsoon means a bumper harvest, more money in the hands of India's vast rural population and more demand for consumer items.

Mr Ashok Gulati, Asia director of the Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute, said that except for six states - Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Tamil Nadu and Arunachal Pradesh - the rainfall in the remaining 23 states was deficient by 20 per cent.

Confronted with the likelihood of a failed monsoon, the government of Andhra Pradesh has launched a 220 million rupee (S$7 million) cloud-seeding project, hoping that it will cause rainfall in its parched districts.

Officials said that even though cloud seeding has a very low success rate, the government is desperate as it faces the prospect of failed crops and acute power shortage due to a fall in hydropower generation.

In neighbouring Karnataka state, the government fears it may not be able to keep its promise of free electricity to small farmers.

'If the monsoon continues to be weak and reservoirs do not fill up, it will be difficult to supply free power to farmers though we want to keep our word,' Mr D.H. Shankara Murthy, deputy chairman of the state planning board, told reporters in Bangalore, the state capital.

But some, like Mr Dalip Kumar, an expert on agriculture and rural development at the National Council of Applied Economic Research, said rain-deficit regions have seen a revival of the monsoon in the last few days.

He told The Staits Times that the monsoon had picked up and is active in most rice-growing states in northern and eastern India.

'We expect a 4 per cent increase in rice production this year.'

In Kerala state, farmer Keshav Chandran seems hopeful. 'I was worried we will not be able to cultivate rice this year. The fields were parched even in mid-July. But we have been getting heavy rains in the last few days,' he told this newspaper.

pjay@sph.com.sg