Usually, the annual monsoon forecast is released around mid-April.
Though officials in India Meteorological Department said the delay should not be interpreted as below-normal rainfall in the country this year, the agriculture ministry feels the delay could impact its contingency plans, in case of eventualities.
IMD officials said the delay was because the meteorological office wanted to first debate the patterns and models for rainfall in 2012 at meeting of the South Asian Climate Outlook Forum in Pune this week.
The Sascof, an annual affair, analyses the pattern of the southwest monsoon over the entire Indian sub-continent, with particular reference to India.
Inputs by Sascof are considered valuable in understanding the pattern of rainfall over the region.
"The official forecast would be released only after that -- sometime between 25 and 27 of this month," said a senior IMD official.
The monsoon picture would become clear only after that, he added.
However, the delay in the forecast may have been entirely due to procedural reasons, and the agriculture ministry is not to happy about this.
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