Monsoon hits Kerala - weather office

By Ratnajyoti Dutta

(Reuters) - Monsoon rains, vital for farm output in India's trillion-dollar economy, have hit Kerala as scheduled, the chief of the weather office said on Monday.

Good rainfall after last year's drought would help boost the country's output of grain and oilseeds, help calm inflation that has triggered widespread protests and prompt the government to relax curbs on export of wheat and rice.

"The monsoon has hit the Kerala coast," Ajit Tyagi, director general of the India Meteorological Department, told Reuters.

The four-month monsoon season has begun sooner than the usual date of June 1, in line with the weather office's forecast that it would hit the mainland on May 30.

"It's raining here," D. Sivananda Pai, director of the weather office, said by phone from Cochin, now widely called Kochi.