The normal monsoon has made Videocon chairman V N Dhoot look afresh at his company's numbers for the year.

Dhoot told Business Standard he had revised upwards the projected sales for rural and semi-urban markets by 15 per cent.

With these areas contributing 55 per cent to Videocon's business, he can look forward to an 8 per cent rise in volumes this year.

Companies with large agrarian markets couldn't have asked for more. With the India Meteorological Department declaring that the chances of drought are now close to nil, these firms have scaled up their sales projections.

In its pre-monsoon prediction, the IMD had said rainfall would be slightly below normal this year.

However, rainfall in the past few weeks has surpassed expectations, raising hopes of a higher agricultural output and increased disposable income in towns and villages.

The Confederation of Indian Industry had earlier talked of an agricultural growth of 2-4 per cent during the year. It now puts the figure at 4 per cent.

Sulajja Firodia Motwani, joint managing director of Kinetic Engineering, said growth in motorcycle sales during the year would be 18 per cent, against the 10 per cent projected earlier.

"First-quarter sales have not been good and the second quarter does not look encouraging either. But sales will pick up from the third quarter, thanks to the monsoon," R L Ravichandran, vice-president (business development and marketing) at Bajaj Auto, said.

Sales of tractors, expected to dip 10 per cent this year after falling 20 per cent in 2002, are now being projected to stabilise at last year's figure of 180,000.

"Since the impact of an economic recovery takes a year to show in tractor sales, we have no doubt things will improve next year," Rakesh Chopra, chief executive at the tractors division of Escorts, said.

L D Mittal, chairman of Sonalika Tractors, added, "Our inventories will be cleared and receivables brought down."

Same goes for the consumer electronics industry. "A good monsoon will mean good festival sales in the second half of the year," said Ravinder Zutshi, director of Samsung India. The company has set its growth target at 65 per cent for the year.

At LG India, the good monsoon is expected to tilt sales in favour of the rural market.

Even the biscuit industry is looking to grow at over 25 per cent, against the projected 12-15 per cent at the beginning of the year.

"The monsoon is going to be good news for our industry," said B P Agarwal, chairman of Surya Foods and Agro Ltd. The company's Priyagold brand of biscuits is popular in rural and semi-urban areas.

Says Dabur India CEO Sunil Duggal, "Since we procure large quantities of agricultural produce, which are dependent on good monsoons, we hope to save on costs as well."

Fertiliser companies are also revising their projections. Executives at the Zuari-Chambal Group said ground moisture had improved substantially in Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana, which would lead to a better offtake of urea and DAP.

"We hope to recover last year's losses," said one of them, referring to a fall in fertiliser volumes in 2002.

"We are looking to do better than last year," said Ajay Shriram, chairman of DSCL, which produces fertilisers under the Shriram brand.

With 30-40 per cent of its demand coming from rural markets, the cement industry also hopes to clock better growth this year.

"We are expecting a huge increase in demand after October. With a good crop there will be cash in villages. A lot of their construction has been deferred due to lack of cash," A V Srinivasan, secretary-general of the Cement Manufacturers' Association, explained.