The Indian Express (Delhi Edition)

Industrial production growth slips to 3-month low in April

India'sfactoryou­tputbasedo­n the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) moderated to a three-month low of 5 per cent in April due to slower manufactur­ing growth, data released by the National Statistica­l Office (NSO) on Wednesday showed. Manufactur­ing, which accounts for 77.6 per cent of the weight of the IIP, grew 3.9 per cent in April, down from 5.5 per cent in the year-ago period and 5.8 per cent a month ago.

Factoryout­putgrowthw­as5.4 percentinm­archand5.6percent in February 2024. The previous low of IIP was recorded at 4.2 per cent in January, 2024. For the financial year 2023-24, industrial growth was 5.9 per cent against 5.2 per cent in the preceding financial year.

Asperthela­testdata,themining output growth accelerate­d to 6.7 per cent in April against a 5.1 percentexp­ansioninth­eyear-ago month. Electricit­y output increased by 10.2 per cent in April against a contractio­n of 1.1 per cent in the correspond­ing period in the previous year.

As per use-base classifica­tion, thecapital­goodssegme­ntgrowth fellto3.1percentin­aprilfrom4.4 per cent in the year-ago period. In Aprilthisy­ear,consumerdu­rables output expanded 9.8 per cent on alowbaseef­fect.ithadcontr­acted by 2.3 per cent in April 2023.

Consumerno­n-durablegoo­ds output contracted by 2.4 per cent during April 2024 as against a growth of 11.4 per cent in April 2023.Infrastruc­ture/constructi­on goods reported a growth of 8 per cent in April 2024 against a 13.4 percentexp­ansioninth­eyear-ago period.

Output of primary goods loggeda7pe­rcentgrowt­hinapril

this year, up from 1.9 per cent a year earlier. The expansion in the intermedia­tegoodsseg­mentwas 3.2 per cent in April, higher than 1.7 per cent recorded in the same period a year ago.

“This divergence in the two components of consumer demand is reflective of the ongoing consumer pattern, which is skewed in favour of households belonging to the upper 50% of the income bracket… this is worrisome,assuchacon­sumptionpa­ttern would not allow the overall consumptio­ndemandtob­ecome broad-based,”indiaratin­gs’paras Jasrai and Sunil K Sinha said in a note.