The ferry carrying nearly 300 passengers sank about 80 kilometres (50 miles) from the port of Cochin, near the town of Kottayam, early on Saturday morning.

Rescue operations have been scaled down and we will call off the search at 8pm local time

Gopinath, Police official

Though many passengers have not yet been accounted for, the authorities believe most have survived.

Several passengers jumped off the boat and are believed to have swum to safety.

The injured are undergoing treatment in a nearby hospital. Seven of them are reported to be in a critical condition.

Young people

Twenty-nine bodies have been taken out of the lake by rescue workers. The Navy and Air Force were called out to help the search.

"Rescue operations have been scaled down and we will call off the search at 8pm local time," deputy superintendent of police in Kottayam, Gopinath, told the BBC.

District authorities say many of those on the boat were young people on their way to sit a government recruitment exam.

The accident took place in Kerala's busy network of inland waterways, which is the main transport artery for many people in this densely populated state.

The boat, owned by the state-run road transport corporation capsized within an hour of leaving its starting point .

Government officials say that the boat should have been carrying 100 people at the most but was filled to almost three times its capacity.

Overloading is believed to be one of the main causes of ferry disasters in Kerala, as well as the eastern state of West Bengal.