Despite a rebound in May, the growth figure remained low and may add to the clamour for rate cut by the Reserve Bank of India
Industrial production grew by 1.2 per cent in May after seeing a contraction in the previous month, mainly due to uptick in consumer durables output.
Factory output, measured in terms of the Index of Industrial Production (IIP), had expanded by 2.5 per cent in May last year, the data released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) showed on Tuesday.
On cumulative basis, the factory output in April-May contracted by 0.1 per cent compared to 2.8 per cent growth in the year-ago period.
Despite a rebound in May, the growth figure remained low and may add to the clamour for rate cut by the Reserve Bank of India.
Meanwhile, the provisional estimates of 0.8 per cent contraction in April this year was revised downwards to 1.34 per cent decline in factory output.
According to data, output of consumer durables, which include white goods like television, refrigerators and washing machines, grew by 6 per cent in May compared to a contraction of 3.9 per cent in the same month a year ago.
The manufacturing sector that constitutes over 75 per cent of the index saw a growth of 0.7 per cent in May compared to 2.1 per cent a year ago.
Power generation grew 4.7 per cent in May compared to 6 per cent in the same month a year ago.
The mining sector recorded a growth of 1.3 per cent in May this year as against 2.1 per cent a year ago.
In terms of industries, 14 out of 22 industry groups in the manufacturing sector have shown growth during the month of May 2016 compared to the corresponding month of the previous year.
As per user-based classification, the growth rates in May 2016 are 3.9 per cent in basic goods, (-) 12.4 per cent in capital goods and 3.6 per cent in intermediate goods.
The consumer non-durables output contracted by 2.2 per cent. The overall growth in consumer goods was 1.1 per cent.
Image: A worker welds iron pipes inside a workshop at an industrial area in Mumbai. Photograph: Shailesh Andrade/Reuters
