The country will get a normal monsoon this year, benefiting agriculture, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) announced on Tuesday.

"As per present estimation, the distribution of rainfall is likely to follow the climatological factors... we assess normal rainfall at 96 percent (plus/minus 5 per cent)," IMD Director General K.J. Ramesh said at press conference here.

The date of the monsoon's onset into Kerala will be announced in late May, he added.