Four Sangli villages were cut off while rescuers using rowboats overnight evacuated another 2,500 marooned people from the inundated central Satara district, it said.

In adjoining Gujarat state, authorities evacuated 70,000 people from six flood-hit districts, said D.A. Satya director of relief operations.

Torrential rain has killed 15 people since Friday and forced the closure of 150 Gujarat motorways since then, he said as meteorologists warned the torrent would not let up until Tuesday.

Eighty students have been marooned in their high school in Vadodra district since the weekend, local administrator Chandu Patel said.

The latest deaths take to nearly 50 the number of people killed in rain-related accidents in Gujarat since June when the monsoon slammed into India's west coast. The national monsoon toll has exceeded 300 according to one official count.

State authorities warned that 38 brimming reservoirs, including Gujarat's two largest dams in the districts of Bhavnagar and Rajkot, were overflowing.

The national policy-making Indian Agriculture Research Institute (IARI), however, said the floods were unlikely to affect an anticipated bumper harvest of summer crops as the rains are now covering all of agriculture-dependent India.

"Such floods are not uncommon at this time of the year in Gujarat and Mahrashtra and the rains are not expected to come in the way of our anticipation of a good khariff (monsoon) crop," IARI's principal scientist N. V. K. Chakravarty told AFP.

Chakravarty said the delayed monsoon rains have washed away fears of a shortfall in production in India, where two thirds of people live off farming.

"The recent rains prospects are pretty good specially for crops such as rice, maize cereals, cotton and jute which is planted in July.

"If the monsoon maintains its present trend in August and September then the wheat output will also be very high due to formation of rich moisture and good water reservoir positions," he said.

"It's too early to say but the rainfall pattern so far has raised hopes of bountiful wheat production this winter," he said, while also predicting a robust yield in oilseeds in the states of Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnakata and Andhra Pradesh.

The IARI chief scientist also said the soggy conditions were healthy for vegetable production.

"Today, the farmers are well equipped to handle pests so such condition will prove to be a blessing," Chakravarty said.

India says a bountiful monsoon would further spur Asia's fourth largest economy, which is clipping ahead at a brisk 8.1 percent annual growth.

According to the National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting, rainfall during the peak season between June 1 and July 19 was normal in 23 of India's 36 meteorological zones, in excess in one and patchy in 12.

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