Industrial output growth slipped to 2.7 pc in March

New Delhi: Industrial output growth slipped to 2.7 per cent in March, chiefly because of poor performance of the manufacturing sector, showed the IIP data based on the revised base year of 2011-12.

The index of industrial production (IIP) growth was 5.5 per cent in March 2016. For 2016-17, factory output grew by 5 per cent as against 3.4 per cent in the year-ago period.

On the other hand, IIP growth based on the old series (2004-05 base year) was 2.5 per cent in March compared to 0.3 per cent a year ago. Similarly, the figure for 2016-17 was 0.7 per cent as against 2.4 per cent in the previous fiscal.

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) revises the base year of the macroeconomic indicators, as a regular exercise, to capture structural changes in the economy and improve the quality and representativeness of the indices.

As per the data based on the new base year, the manufacturing sector output slowed to 1.2 per cent in March, from 5 per cent in the same month of the previous fiscal. Electricity generation too slowed to 6.2 per cent, from 11.9 per cent in March 2016.

The mining sector, however, expanded by 9.7 per cent in March 2017 compared to a growth of 4.7 per cent in the year- ago month. The CSO said the new series shows higher growth rates in most months during April 2012 and March 2017 compared to the existing one (2004-05).

This, it said, is attributable to shifting of base to a more recent period, increase in number of factories in panel for reporting data, exclusion of closed ones and inclusion of new items and exclusion of old ones.

The coverage of the new series of IIP is limited to the organised sector only. At a broad level, the new series has a total of 809 items in the manufacturing sector.

In the item basket, 149 new products like steroids and hormonal preparations, cement clinkers, medical or surgical accessories, pre-fabricated concrete blocks and refined palm oil have been added.

Also, 124 items such as biaxially oriented (olypropylene) (BOPP) films, calculators, colour TV picture tubes and gutka have been removed from the 2004-05 series, which had 620 items in the manufacturing sector.