India’s industrial output growth slowed marginally to 4.9% in March 2024 mainly due to poor performance by the mining sector, according to official data released on Friday.
Factory output growth, measured in terms of the Index of Industrial Production (IIP), stood at 5.6% in February 2024. However, in March 2023 it was 1.9%.
For fiscal year 2023-24, IIP growth reached 5.8 percent as against 5.2% in the previous fiscal year. India’s index of industrial production grew by 4.9% in March 2024, according to a statement by the Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation.
According to the latest data, mining output growth slowed to 1.2% in March, compared to 6.8% growth in the same month a year ago. The growth rate of the manufacturing sector increased to 5.2% in March compared to 1.5% a year ago.
Electricity generation increased by 8.6% in March, whereas it declined by 1.6% in the same month last year. According to the observation-based classification, growth of the capital goods segment in March 2024 fell to 6.1% from 10% in the year-ago period. The production of consumer durables increased by 9.5% in March this year. There was a decline of 8% in March 2023. The production of consumer non-durable goods grew by 4.9% during the month compared to a contraction of 1.9% in March 2023.
According to the data, infrastructure/construction goods registered a growth of 6.9% in March 2024 compared to 7.2% in the year-ago period. The data also showed that the production of primary goods registered a growth of 2.5% in March this year, which was less than 3.3% a year ago.
The expansion in the intermediate goods segment was 5.1% in the month under review, higher than the 1.8% recorded in the same period a year ago.