By IANS,
New Delhi : India’s industrial production saw a staggering decline in October, with official figures released Monday showing a negative growth of 5.1 percent in output mainly owing to huge fall in manufacturing and mining sectors.
Growth in factory output, measured in terms of the Index of Industrial Production (IIP), was logged at 11.3 percent in October 2010-11.
Industrial production has been sluggish for more than a quarter, with India Inc. blaming rising interest rates, which shot up after successive rate hikes by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and a slowdown in overall investment activity because of uncertainty in the global economy.
In the month under review, manufacturing output registered a negative growth of minus-6 percent, while mining activity declined minus-7.2 percent.
IIP of for September for the current fiscal was revised marginally upwards to 2 percent. In July, IIP registered a 3.8 percent increase and nudged up further to 4.1 percent in August.
During the month under review, electricity output was the only positive news, registering growth of 5.6 percent.
For the April-October period in the current fiscal, IIP has increased by just 3.5 percent, compared to 8.7 percent in the previous comparable period, according to data released by the ministry of statistics and programme implementation.
Manufacturing sector, which constitutes over three-fourths of the IIP index, registered cumulative growth of only 3.7 percent in April-October period, while the mining sector’s cumulative production fell by 2.2 percent in the first seven months of 2011-12.
Out of 22 industry groups, 13 registered positive growth in the month under review.