The Finance Minister, Mr Pranab Mukherjee, has described the decline in industrial growth rate in April as “disturbing” and said he would wait for more data to ascertain the trend.
“The IIP growth figures are disturbing. (We) need to wait for longer term IIP growth to see the trend”, he told reporters here today.
The Index of Industrial Production (IIP) as per the new series (base year 2004-05) declined to 6.3 per cent in April from 13.1 per cent in the corresponding period last year.
As per the old series (base year 1993-94), industrial output registered a steeper fall in April to 4.4 per cent from 16.6 per cent a year ago.
The decline has mainly been on account of poor performance of the manufacturing and mining sectors.
Growth in manufacturing, which constitutes about 80 per cent of the index weight, nosedived to 4.4 per cent in April from a high of 18 per cent in the same month last year, as per the old series. Mining grew by a meagre 2.1 per cent during the month under review against 12 per cent in April 2010.
Similar trends were noticed in the new data series which revealed decline in manufacturing sector growth during the month to 6.9 per cent from 14.4 per cent and mining sector to 2.2 per cent from 9.2 per cent.