Volatility in capital goods segment of IIP persists

The data for capital goods in the new series are now captured in terms of 'work in progress'

Volatility continues in the new series of the Index of Industrial Production (IIP). The government had attempted to address this volatility on account of capital goods, by distributing the production process over the months. Yet, the capital goods index declined 1.3 per cent in April after rising 9.6 per cent in March, after falling 3.1 per cent in February and 0.2 per cent in January.

The ministry of statistics and programme implementation had come out with a new series of IIP in May, changing the base year from 2004-05 to 2011-12. Beside updating the base year, the method of calculating