Reacting to the official Index of Industrial Production (IIP) figures announced on Wednesday, apex industry chambers expressed their deepest concern and asked for early implementation of non-legislative policy measures.

“At this juncture, announcements on FDI, fiscal consolidation and manufacturing policy implementation would be of great help. Further impediments to manufacturing growth such as issues of land, power and business regulatory environment need to be addressed, said Chandrajit Banerjee, Director-General, Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) .

IIP grew 0.1 per cent growth in July. R.V. Kanoria, President, FICCI, said: “The positive 0.1 per cent growth in IIP is insignificant since both the capital and intermediate goods category are in negative territory. The negative growth in capital goods will have lag effect implying that industrial growth will remain subdued in coming months.’’

Apex industry bodies stressed on the need to cut interest rates by the Reserve Bank in order to boost the sentiment.

Cautioning against full-blown recession, Assocham said that the backbone of industrial economy is sliding and this needs to be reversed to avoid a full-blown recession.

“We are still waiting for bold announcements on reforms in areas like decontrolling diesel price, reducing fiscal deficit to create an atmosphere which will encourage investments,” said Kanoria.

>heena.k@thehindu.co.in

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