Index of Industrial Production at 1.6% as against 4.9% year ago

New Delhi: India's industrial production grew at the fastest pace in six months at two per cent in January, mainly on account of uptick in mining activity and power generation, official data showed on Thursday. Factory output, as measured in terms of the Index of Industrial Production (IIP), had recorded a growth of 1.6 per cent in January 2019. It grew 4.9 per cent in July 2019.

The production contracted by 1.4 per cent in August, 4.6 in September and 6.6 per cent in October last year. It grew 1.8 per cent in November and 0.1 per cent in December 2019. Last month, provisional data had showed that IIP contracted by 0.3 per cent in December 2019. According to data from the National Statistical Office (NSO), the manufacturing sector output grew at a rate of 1.5 per cent in January as compared with a rise of 1.3 per cent in the corresponding month a year ago. Electricity generation rose 3.1 per cent, against 0.9 per cent growth in January 2019. The mining sector output posted a growth of 4.4 per cent in January 2020, compared with a rise of 3.8 per cent a year ago.

The IIP growth during the April 2019-January 2020 period decelerated to 0.5 per cent, from 4.4 per cent expansion in the corresponding period of 2018-19. The data for January further showed that production of capital goods, a barometer of investment, shrunk by 4.3 per cent as compared with a contraction of 3.6 per cent in the previous corresponding month.