Sowing of winter rice and oilseeds has started along with the progress of the monsoon over India's southern and northeastern regions, the agriculture ministry said on Thursday.

The June-September southwest monsoon, bearing moist winds that trigger rains, is the lifeline of the economy and usually hits the southern coast on June 1. This year it arrived a week later.

A ministry statement said that so far about 782,000 hectares had been sown with rice, compared with about 854,000 hectares at the same time last year.

India's winter rice crop extends over about 4.06 crore (40.6 million) hectares with Uttar Pradesh and Punjab, West Bengal and Orissa contributing the bulk of the crop.

"Sowing of groundnut, sesamum, sunflower, soybean and castor has commenced," the statement said without giving details.

India's winter oilseeds are normally grown over about 1.576 crore (15.76 million) hectares including 58.2 lakh (5.82 million) hectares under groundnut and 63.8 lakh (6.38 million) hectares under soybean.

Gujarat, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh are the main groundnut growing states while Madhya Pradesh accounts for the bulk of the soybean output.

Weather officials have forecast that the monsoon, which has advanced into western Goa and southern Karnataka, will hit Maharashtra and Gujarat in the next few days.

The ministry statement said sugar cane sowing had been completed over 35.3 lakh (3.53 million) hectares, up from 34 lakh (3.4 million) at this time last year.

Sowing of cotton was nearly complete in Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan, it said.

A senior ministry official said this week the country's projections on the output and exports of farm commodities remained unchanged, despite the delayed onset of the monsoon.