Industrial Output grew by 4.1% in April

News:

• The country’s industrial output grew 4.1 per cent in April, compared with 2.5 per cent in March, which is a  good news for the government’s ‘Make in India’ programme and a good start to financial year 2015-16.
• In April, the rate of manufacturing growth rose to 5.1 per cent, against the previous month’s 2.8 per cent. That growth was not broad-based could be gauged from the fact that mining rose 0.6 per cent in April, against 1.1 per cent in March, while electricity generation declined 0.5 per cent, compared to growth of 1.9 per cent. Power outage is described as a hurdle by many in the Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) survey.
• Of the total expansion of 4.1 per cent, 3.85 percentage points were accounted for by the manufacturing sector alone. Manufacturing growth zoomed due to a surge in capital goods production to 11.1 per cent, compared with 8.6 per cent in March.
• The capital goods segment has been posting a growth rate between six per cent and 12 per cent since November.
• The  consumer durables sector came out of the contraction mode. The segment grew moderately, by 1.3 per cent in April, against a contraction of 4.8 per cent in March and 7.7 per cent in April last year.
• However, tractor production continued to decline, amid rural distress. This contraction led to a fall of 20 basis points in IIP
• Basic goods grew 2.8 per cent and intermediate goods 3.3 per cent, against 2.5 per cent and 2.9 per cent, respectively, a month earlier.
•  The eight key infrastructure industries, with a weight of almost 38 per cent on IIP, had contracted for a second straight month in April, by 0.4 per cent, the most in 18 months.
• The industry group comprising office, accounting and computing machinery saw the biggest contraction in April. It fell 36.5 per cent, and was closely followed by radio and television sets (decline of 34 per cent) and tobacco products (down 26.7 per cent).