IIP rises 14.4% in November

After dropping to 6.16 per cent in October, the country's industrial production bounced back to 14.4 per cent in November 2006, compared with 6 per cent in the same month last year, the fastest in over a decade.

The increase came on the back of an impressive performance by the manufacturing and mining sector.

However, this increase has come about on a lower base for the same month last year. Given that the base for December and January 2005-06 was higher, the growth rates for the coming two months may not be as high.

The Index of Industrial Production rose to 10.6 per cent in April-November 2006-07, against 8.3 per cent in the corresponding period of 2005-06, a ministry of statistics and programme implementation release said today.

Growth in the manufacturing sector stood at 15.7 per cent in November 2006, compared with 7 per cent in November 2005, while power generation grew by 8.7 per cent in November 2006 from 3.4 per cent in the same month last year. Mining output rose by 7 per cent from 2.1 per cent decline in November 2005.

The manufacturing sector reported double-digit growth in the first eight months of this financial year at 11.5 per cent compared with 9.4 per cent in the same period a year ago.

During April-November 2006-07 the mining sector grew by 3.8 per cent compared with 0.5 per cent in the year-ago period while electricity generation increased by 7.3 per cent compared with 5 per cent in the same period last year.

The basic goods sector grew by 11.6 per cent in November 2006, capital goods by 25.3 per cent, intermediate goods by 16.7 per cent and consumer goods by 11.9 per cent in November.

October numbers whittled down

The Index of Industrial Production for October 2006 has been revised downwards to 4.38 per cent from the previously reported 6.16 per cent.

This has been attributed to a downward revision in the production data by the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion and the office of the textiles commissioner.

The government said while there had been no significant revision in the sectoral and general indices for August 2006, the index for October 2006 in respect of the manufacturing sector had undergone downward revision of 2.1 percent point.

Along with the quick estimates of the Index of Industrial Production for November 2006 the indices for August 2006 had also undergone the second (final) revision in the light of the updated data received from the source agencies.