UPDATE 1-India grain export ban review depends on monsoon

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NEW DELHI, June 25 (Reuters) - India will look at lifting grain export curbs only after watching the progress of monsoon rains and the planting of summer-sown crops, its farm secretary said on Thursday.

The weather office on Wednesday said the annual June-September monsoon rains would deliver only 93 percent of the long-term average, coming in below normal for the first time in four years.

Indian farmers, who depend on the monsoon as only 40 percent of farmland is irrigated, plant summer-sown crops such as rice, soybeans and sugarcane in the monsoon months of June and July.

"We will be very careful on this," T Nanda Kumar said when asked about a relaxation of curbs on wheat and non-basmati rice exports.

Hit by a poor crop and rising global prices, India clamped down on exports of wheat and rice in the past two years to stave of shortages at home.

Higher output since then and overflowing grain bins had raised hopes it would ease trade restrictions.

Rice stocks at government warehouses touched 20.4 million tonnes on June 1, up 69 percent from a year earlier and wheat stocks jumped to 33.1 million tonnes, 37 percent up from a year ago.

Government officials warned against pessimism, saying the rains could pick up in coming months.