Industrial growth up 13.6 per cent in April

Buoyant manufacturing sector has pushed up industrial growth to 13.6 per cent in the first month of the current financial year against 9.9 per cent in April 2006.

The industrial growth, as measured by the Index of Industrial Production (IIP), showed good performance despite the core sector which contributes to 26 per cent of the index showing a low growth of 7.4 per cent in April.

While the manufacturing sector recorded a whopping 15.1 per cent growth in April as against 11 per cent in the same month last year, the electricity generation went up by 8.7 per cent against 5.9 per cent.

The mining sector, however, continued to perform poorly recording a low growth of 3.4 per cent, the same as in the corresponding period last year.
As per the use-based classification, consumer non-durables sector recorded very high growth rate of 21.9 per cent against 9.4 per cent in April 2006.

However, consumer durable sector witnessed a deceleration of growth which dipped to 5.3 per cent as against 7.4 per cent in the corresponding month last year. The other segments of the industry which include basic goods and capital goods also witnessed d eceleration in growth.
The IIP growth rate for the basic goods dipped to 8.9 per cent and for capital goods to 17.7 per cent from 9.3 per cent and 19.6 per cent respectively.

The intermediate goods showed a good performance with a growth rate moving up to 12.6 per cent from 8.5 per cent in April 2006.