Industrial output growth slows in Sept

The industrial production growth figures for September have nosedived to 6.4 per cent in September, an official statement released on Monday said. The fall is attributed to poor showing by the manufacturing sector, especially consumer durables segment. The Index of Industrial Production (IIP) stood at 12 per cent for the corresponding period last year. For the first half of the current fiscal (April to September 2007) too, IIP slipped to 9.2 per cent as against 11.1 per cent in the same period a year ago.

During September, the manufacturing sector growth decelerated to 6.6 per cent as compared with 12.7 per cent in the same month last year. The consumer durables sector was the worst performer which reported 7.6 per cent decline in output during the month.The index for power generation too witnessed a decline with 4.5 per cent growth during the month. It stood at 11.3 per cent in September 2006. The mining sector, however, showed a positive trend at 6 per cent, improving upon the growth of 4.3 per cent recorded in the corresponding month last year. As regards the cumulative growth, manufacturing sector output during April-September 2007 slipped to 9.7 per cent as compared to 12.3 per cent in the corresponding period last year.

Some improvement, however, was recorded in electricity and mining sectors which posted 7.7 per cent and 5.3 per cent growth over 6.6 per cent and 3.1 per cent respectively during the same period in the previous fiscal. The use-based classification of IIP revealed that consumer durables sector output declined by 7.6 per cent in September, while the consumer non-durables sector posted a low growth of 2.2 per cent.

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The output of the consumer goods sector as a whole declined by 0.6 per cent during the month as against a robust growth of 12.1 per cent in September 2006. The growth of the basic goods slipped to 6.7 per cent during September as compared to 11.5 per cent in the corresponding month last year.

The output of the consumer non-durables sector during the same period declined to 8.4 per cent from 10.2 per cent, consumer goods to 5.3 per cent from 11.5 and intermediate goods to 9.5 per cent from 10.9 per cent. The output of the capital goods sector during the first half of the current fiscal improved to 19.6 per cent from 17.5 per cent and basic goods to 9.4 per cent from 8.8 per cent.