Indian economic policymakers are depending on ample monsoon rains to help farmers produce more food grains to tame rising prices after inflation hit a three-year high at 7.41 percent last week as global food costs soar.

The country's meteorological department said in its annual pre-monsoon forecast that the summer rains, which normally begin off the southwest coast on June 1 and head north to the Himalayas, would be above the long-term average.

Around 40 percent of India's arable land is irrigated with the remainder of the farm population dependent on the skies to grow crucial crops such as rice, wheat and oil seeds.

Agriculture remains the bedrock of the Indian economy with about 60 percent of the population of more than a billion relying on it for a living.

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