Most revisions have been cautious, with forecasters preferring to err on the side of optimism. But the independent economic think-tank, Centre for Monitoring the Indian Economy (CMIE), has decided to dispense with all the niceties and be blunt about its outlook.

CMIE's revised forecast for India's GDP growth in 2002-03 stands at 3.1 per cent, down from the earlier forecast of 4.5 per cent. The cause: the failed monsoon.

That's a good percentage point below the 'pessimistic' forecasts of most analysts' public statements ('brood in private, cheer in public' remains an operating principle), and a good two points below the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) expectation.

Downward revisions, per se, have been going on for all of the past month or so. Earlier, both HDFC Securities and Asian Development Bank (ADB) had revised India's growth prospects. HDFC Securities moved it down from 5.4 per cent to 3.7 per cent (for the calendar year 2002), while lowering the agricultural growth to a negative 2.3 per cent. ADB announced that it was likely to revise its 6 per cent estimate for the current fiscal, downward, on account of the drought in some parts of the country, but did not say by how many points.

The precise link between monsoon performance and GDP growth remains a matter of speculation. This is mainly because of the lack of clarity about the domino effect (poor primary sector growth hurting the secondary and tertiary sectors) in the post-liberalisation context. The CMIE report assumes a fairly high cross-sectoral impact. "The fall in agricultural production and the consequent fall in agricultural incomes is expected to have an adverse impact upon the growth in demand for industrial goods and services," it states.

Others may dispute the strength of the connection, but what they can't deny is that India, having received a rainfall of 29 per cent less than 'normal', is set to experience an agricultural crisis of proportions unseen since 1987.

Punjab and Haryana, the two states that account for a disproportionate share of India's foodgrain production, have suffered acute rain shortage. But then, these are also the two states that have good irrigation facilities to mitigate the effect of sparse rains. Agricultural output in most of the other North Indian states is likely to suffer from a 52-74 per cent shortfall. This is quite a headache.

Overall, the Indian farm sector contributes a quarter of the GDP and employs (or disguisedly unemploys, if you will) close to 70 per cent of India's billion-plus population.

If GDP growth actually slips to 3.1 per cent, it will be the lowest since 1991-92, the year of India's last economic crisis. Past data suggest that whenever agricultural growth has been negative, the entire economy has suffered (1997-98 being the last example of a major drag-down).

Marketers are bracing themselves for a bad season of sales, particularly in the rural North. Says S. Naren, COO, Head of Research, HDFC Securities: " There is likely to be a sharp revision in the sale of two-wheelers, for example, because nearly 27 per cent of the sale comes from the northern region, which have been impacted by the drought.''

Is there a silver lining? Inflation won't necessarily break out, since India's food granaries have been overflowing for some time now. Secondly, $60 billion of foreign exchange reserves is more than enough to import whatever quantity the country needs. The days of acute drought-related misery are over, more or less. But growing at just a third of the desired rate isn't doing anything to "end poverty within a generation".