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The growth is below the 7.1 per cent, 6.2 per cent, 6.1 per cent and 6.7 per cent levels registered for July, August, September and October, respectively.

NEW DELHI, Jan. 10

INDUSTRIAL growth slipped to 3.7 per cent in November 2002, after showing signs of sustained pick-up in the previous months.

The latest quick estimates of the Index of Industrial Production (IIP), released by the Central Statistical Organisation (CSO) here today, show that the overall `general' index registered a year-on-year increase of 3.7 per cent in November 2002, compared to 2.4 per cent in the same month of the previous year.

However, the growth is below the 7.1 per cent, 6.2 per cent, 6.1 per cent and 6.7 per cent levels registered for July, August, September and October, respectively. At the same time, the cumulative growth rate of 5.3 per cent for April-November works out to be higher than the 2.5 per cent growth recorded for the corresponding eight months of the previous fiscal.

Further, all the three major sectors constituting the general index — manufacturing, mining and electricity — have notched up higher growth rates during the April-October period.

While the overall growth rate during April-November for `manufacturing' was 5.4 per cent (compared to 2.6 per cent during April-November 2001), the corresponding figures for `mining' and `electricity' stood at 5.7 per cent (0.7 per cent) and four per cent (2.5 per cent), respectively.

For November 2002, the growth rates for manufacturing and electricity, at 3.8 per cent and 3.5 per cent respectively, were higher than their corresponding November 2001 levels of 2.3 per cent and 2.4 per cent, but it was lower (2.9 per cent versus 3.7 per cent) in the case of mining. But on the whole, there is no doubt that the industrial scenario has improved markedly in the current fiscal, notwithstanding the slowdown in November.

These trends are also visible in the CSO's data pertaining to the `use-based' classification of the IIP. Production of `capital goods' — a proxy for investment demand in economy — went up by 9.6 per cent in November, compared to 1.9 per cent in the same month in 2001. For the April-November period, capital goods registered a 9.9 per cent growth, against minus 4.9 per cent in the first eight months of the previous fiscal.

For `basic goods', `intermediate goods' and `consumer non-durables', too, the growth rates during April-November 2002, at 4.7 per cent, 2.6 per cent and 12.7 per cent, stood higher than the corresponding April-November 2001 levels of two per cent, 2.1 per cent and 3.2 per cent, respectively.

However, the cumulative growth for consumer durables was minus six per cent, compared to 12.9 per cent for April-November 2001.

During November 2002, the production of basic goods went up up 2.9 per cent (against three per cent in Novemner 2001), while rising by five per cent (minus 1.5 per cent) for intermediate goods, minus 1.9 per cent (4.4 per cent) for consumer durables and three per cent (5.9 per cent) for consumer non-durables.

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