NEW DELHI | May 13, 2015:

After rising to almost 5 per cent in February, factory output growth fell to a five-month low of 2.1 per cent in March. The cumulative growth for the period April-March 2014-15 stands at 2.8 per cent as against a contraction of 0.1 per cent in 2013-14.

The Index of Industrial Production (IIP) for manufacturing sector, which constitutes 75 per cent of IIP, stood at 2.2 per cent as compared to 5.2 per cent in February, while the mining sector output grew only 0.9 per cent against 2.5 per cent the previous month. The cumulative growth in the three sectors during April-March 2014-15 over the corresponding period of 2013-14 has been 1.4 per cent, 2.3 per cent and 8.4 per cent respectively.

Samiran Chakraborty, managing director and head (Macro research) at Standard Chartered Bank said, “We were anticipating that the overall number could be little down but looks like the base effect has rescued the number for this time but we have to keep in mind that from next month onwards there is not much of a base effect on IIP.”

Overall, 13 out of 22 industry groups in the manufacturing sector showed positive growth during March.

Confederation of Indian Industry Director General Chandrajit Banerjee said, “Easing inflation would provide the requisite space to RBI to continue with its rate easing cycle in its forthcoming monetary policy announcement to provide a fillip to growth and also encourage banks to reduce rates.”

Meanwhile, IIP for February has been revised downwards by CSO to 4.86 per cent from the provisional estimate of 5 per cent released last month.

(Source: http://www.newindianexpress.com/)