Industrial growth rebounds to 6.8 % in Jan

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Showing signs of recovery, industrial production gathered pace and grew 6.8 per cent in January, over the previous month, mainly due to improvement in the manufacturing sector.

Growth in factory output growth, as measured by the Index of Industrial Production (IIP), was however higher at 7.5 per cent in January 2011.

IIP growth has been revised upwards to 2.5 per cent in December, from the provisional estimates of 1.8 per cent.

Output of the manufacturing sector, which constitutes over 75 per cent of the index, rose 8.5 per cent in January, compared to 8.1 per cent in the same month last year, according to the official data released on Monday.

Besides, output of consumer goods grew 20.2 per cent in January, as compared to 8.3 per cent in the same month last year.

The production of the non-durable consumer goods segment has shown signs of improvement and grew by 42.1 per cent in the month under review.

However the capital goods sector witnessed a contraction of 1.5 per cent, as against a growth of 5.3 per cent in the same month last year.

Mining output too contracted by 2.7 per cent in January, against 1.7 per cent growth in the year ago period.

The power generation witnessed a slow growth of 3.2 per cent in January, compared to 10.5 per cent in the year ago period.

During the month, 13 out of 22 industry groups witnessed growth. Output of basic goods went up by meagre 1.6 per cent, as against 7.7 per cent in the year ago period.

However, intermediate goods witnessed a contraction of 3.2 per cent, as against 7.4 per cent growth in January last year.

During the April-January period in fiscal 2012, the IIP growth stood at 4 per cent, as against 8.3 per cent in same period in 2010-11.