New Delhi, April 12 (FN Agency) India’s factory output measured by Index of Industrial Production (IIP) grew 1.7% year-on-year in February, 2022 primarily on the back of rise in mining and electricity generation. The manufacturing sector growth remained sluggish at 0.8% during this period. Mining and manufacturing sector grew at 4.5% each year-on-year in the month of February. At the use-based classification, out of the six segments, four segments namely primary goods, capital goods, intermediate goods and infrastructure goods recorded positive growth during this period with the most remarkable performance shown by infrastructure which grew at 9.4% in February, 2022.
As per data released by Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation (MoSPI) on Tuesday, both consumer durables and non-durables recorded a contraction of 8.2% and 5.5% in February 2022. “IIP growth has been languishing in low single digit since September 2021. Even before that the triple/double digit growth witnessed in IIP during March-August 2021 was more of a base effect/aberration due to COVID-19 related stringent country wide lockdown during March-August 2020. In fact, dismal performance of IIP has been continuing since long and the last it recorded a decent high single digit growth of 8.4% was in October 2018,” said Sunil Kumar Sinha, Principal Economist, India Ratings and Research. Commenting on the February IIP number, Vivek Rathi, Director-Research at Knight Frank India said that it is reflecting a broad-based trend across segments mainly in capital goods and consumer durables and non-durables segment. “Near future developments on geo-political scenario and capacity utilization would be crucial as the reflection of Omicron and third wave wanes from the index,” he said. UNI NK