Driven by a robust manufacturing sector, the country’s industrial output clocked a growth of 14.4 per cent in November 2006 as against 6 per cent in November 2005, the fastest in 11 years. Manufacturing, which has the highest weight in the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) basket, accelerated by 15.7 per cent in November this fiscal, the highest since June 1996. Power generation and Mining also staged a comeback with electricity production growing by 8.7 per cent as compared to 3.4 per cent in the corresponding month in the previous fiscal. Mining rose by a relatively modest 7 per cent against a slowdown of 2.1 per cent in the previous fiscal. The figures released by the government on Friday bring in a fresh wave of optimism as growth in industrial output had grown by a meagre 6.2 per cent in October 2006, which was mainly due to poor 6 per cent performance of manufacturing sector.According of economists, the figures reflect the fact that the economy at present is experiencing an investment boom and is in line with the high growth trend of this fiscal. “It would be interesting to see how RBI will take a call on this during the month’s end,” Suman Bery, Director, National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) said.According to Saumitra Chaudhury, Economic Advisor, ICRA, the performance of the economy is as expected and is likely to continue. The cumulative industrial growth during April-November 2006 stood at 10.6 per cent compared to 8.3 per cent in the corresponding period of previous fiscal. While manufacturing sector reported a double-digit growth in the first eight months of current fiscal at 11.5 per cent (9.4 per cent in the corresponding period a year-ago), mining sector grew by 3.8 per cent (0.5 per cent) and electricity generation grew by 7.3 per cent (5 per cent). As many as 16 out of 17 industry groups have shown positive growth during the month of November 2006 over the previous year’s figures.
