Industrial growth slows to 4.1% in Feb

Showing persistent sluggishness in the economy, industrial production growth slowed to 4.1% in February this year, mainly due to poor performance of manufacturing sector and consumer goods segment.

Growth in factory output, as measured by the Index of Industrial Production (IIP), was higher at 6.7% in February 2011. Besides, the IIP growth has been revised downwards to 1.14% in January, from the provisional estimates of 6.8%, according to the official data released today.

Output of the manufacturing sector, which constitutes over 75% of the index, rose by just 4% in February, compared to 7.5% in February 2011. Consumer goods output has also shown a slowdown as the production declined by 0.2% in February, as compared to 13.4% in the same month last year.

Besides, the consumer durables segment output contracted 6.7% in February, as against robust 18.2% growth in the same month last year. However, the capital goods sector witnessed a growth of 10.6%, as against a contraction of 5.7% in the same month last year. Mining output too has shown some improvement at 2.1% in February, as against 1.2% growth in the year-ago month.

Power generation witnessed a growth of 8% in February, compared to 6.8% in the year-ago period. During the month, 18 out of 22 industry groups witnessed positive growth in February. Output of basic goods went up by 7.5%, as against 5.5%. However, intermediate goods witnessed a contraction of 0.6%, as against 6.3% growth in February last year.

During the April-February period of 2011-12, the IIP growth is 3.5%, as against 8.1% in same period in 2010-11.