Fears on industrial slowdown are far from over. The CII-Ascon survey for the July-September quarter hints at an expanding crisis given the persistent problems of high interest rates, deficient monsoon, inflation, widening fiscal deficit, and a faltering global economy.

The survey, which compared the expected growth of 103 industrial sectors for July-September 2012 over the year-ago period, found that the number of companies expecting over 20 per cent growth has taken a big dip to just 3.8 per cent in the current quarter, compared with about 23.8 per cent last year.

Further, in the wake of the dismal industrial growth numbers in the April-June quarter, the number of companies anticipating low growth (in the range of 0-10 per cent) has increased from 44.7 per cent last year to 51 per cent this year, while the number of firms in the negative growth band are also seen to rise to 15.5 per cent from 10.6 per cent in the year-ago period.

Chandrajit Banerjee, Director General of Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), said, “Immediate policy actions are needed both by the Government and the Reserve Bank of India to arrest further decline in industrial output. There is also the imperative of getting projects moving on the ground, which would lift sentiments and boost investments.”

Further, the report noted that the number of sectors reporting excellent and good performance in April-June this year against the year-ago quarter dipped heavily from 20.7 per cent to 8.4 per cent and from 31.8 per cent to 14.1 per cent, respectively.

Further, there was a sharp rise in the share of sectors reporting low growth (51 per cent from 42.2 per cent last year) and negative growth (25 per cent from 5.2 per cent earlier).

>aesha.datta@thehindu.co.in

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