India's four-month monsoon season normally runs fromJune to September. But this year, many regions received heavy rains in October, which analysts say could have been due to the La Nina weather phenomenon.``For the first time we are expecting a situation where the summer foodgrains output would be equal to the winter crop or may exceed it,'' Pal said.The country harvests two crops in the agriculture year which runs from July to June and usually gets the bulk of its output from the winter harvest.Pal said India was expecting a total foodgrains output of more than 200 million tonnes in the 1998-99 (July-June) crop season against 193.12 million tonnes in 1997-98.``Wheat crop should be around 70 million tonnes,'' Pal said, adding that so far wheat had been sown on 21.61 million hectares compared with 19.93 million hectares until the same time last season.India harvested a wheat crop of about 66.05 million tonnes in 1997-98 from 25 million hectares. Wheat sowing is expected to continue for one or two more weeks from now.Pal said the summer oilseeds sowing had alsoprogressed in a ``very healthy manner.'' He did not give details. India harvested 13.05 million tonnes in winter oilseeds this year.He said given the sufficient stocks of foodgrains and expectations of a good harvest, the availability of domestic foodgrains would increase in the coming months.``This year will be certainly better than last year in terms of both production and availability,'' Pal said.

``This should keep agricultural commodity prices stable.''Prices of some farm commodities shot up this year after a slump that showed up in the winter output. This played a key role in raising inflation rates and was one of the factors that led to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) losing a round of provincial elections in November.