Industrial output grows 4.5 % in February

New Delhi: India's industrial production grew at the fastest pace in seven months at 4.5 per cent during February, mainly on account of uptick in mining and manufacturing activity as well as 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 0.2 per cent in February 2019. It had registered a growth of 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 2.1 per cent in November and 0.1 per cent in December 2019 and 2.1 per cent in January 2020. Last month, provisional data showed IIP growth of 2 per cent in January, 2020.

According to a data by the National Statistical Office (NSO), the manufacturing sector output grew at a rate of 3.2 per cent in February compared to a contraction of 0.3 per cent in the same month a year ago.

Electricity generation increased by 8.1 per cent as against a growth of 1.3 per cent in February 2019. Mining sector output surged by 10 per cent compared to a growth of 2.2 per cent earlier.

The IIP growth during April-February period of the last fiscal decelerated to 0.9 per cent from 4 per cent expansion in the same period of 2018-19.

The data for February showed that production of capital goods, a barometer of investment, shrunk by 9.7 per cent as compared to a contraction of 9.3 per cent in the corresponding month of the previous year.

As per use-based classification, primary good registered a growth of 7.4 per cent, intermediate goods 22.4 per cent, and infrastructure/ construction goods 0.1 per cent in February 2020 as against the same period a year ago.

The consumer durables output fell 6.4 per cent, while non-durables remained flat. In terms of industries, 13 out of 23 industry groups in the manufacturing sector have shown positive growth in February 2020.

The industry group ''Manufacture of basic metals' has shown the highest positive growth of 18.2 per cent followed by 8.0 per cent in ''Manufacture of chemicals and chemical products'' and in ''Manufacture of other non-metallic mineral products'', as per the data.