Industrial production dipped to a "disappointing" 0.6 per cent in August after some signs of improvement in the previous month, prompting companies to step up their demand for a rate cut to boost economic growth.
Factory output, which showed some signs of recovery after recording a growth of 2.8 per cent in July, remained almost flat year-on-year because of a slump in production of consumer goods and durables.
The low growth in the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) is due to contraction in the mining and manufacturing sectors, showed the data released by government today.
IIP grew by 2 per cent in August last year.
"The numbers are really disappointing, it is very low," Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia told reporters here.
As per the data released by the government today, IIP for April-August worked out to be 0.1 per cent compared with 0.2 per cent in the same period of 2012-13 financial year.
The IIP figure for July has been revised upward to 2.8 per cent from 2.6 per cent, it said. It had contracted by 1.8 per cent in June.
Reacting to the data, industry chamber CII said demanded a cut in the key policy rate from RBI, which had hiked repo rate in its last monetary policy.
"While fully appreciating the RBI's compulsions to keep inflation under check, it is important that the RBI takes cognisance of the condition that industry is in, and reduce interest rates to revive demand," it said.
RBI's next monetary policy review is on October 29.
The manufacturing sector, which constitutes over 75 per cent of the index, contracted by 0.1 per cent in August as against an expansion of 2.4 per cent in the year-ago period.
The mining sector, with a weight of about 14 per cent in the IIP, showed a contraction of 0.2 per cent in August as against a decline of 0.3 per cent in the same period a year ago.
