The Hindu Business Line : Industrial growth tops 10 pc in Oct

THE country is, for the first time since the mid-1990s, witnessing an industrial resurgence of sorts. The official Index of Industrial Production (IIP) has registered a year-on-year increase of 10.1 per cent in October.

Given that the corresponding growth rate during for the same month last year amounted to 6.2 per cent, it clearly shows that the current buoyancy is not a statistical illusion. Moreover, the growth has been largely manufacturing-led.

The index for `manufacturing' has gone up by 11.3 per cent year-on-year during October 2004 (against 7.1 per cent in October 2003), with the corresponding growth rates being 4.7 per cent (2.4 per cent) for `mining' and 3.8 per cent (2.6 per cent) in the case of `electricity'.

For the April-October 2004 period as a whole, the overall growth rate for industry has been 8.4 per cent (6.2 per cent during April-October 2003), making the current fiscal the best since 1995-96, when industry grew by a heady 13 per cent.

While manufacturing growth during the first seven months of 2004-05 stood at 8.8 per cent (against 6.8 per cent in April-October 2003), the corresponding cumulative numbers for mining and electricity were 5 per cent (3.9 per cent) and 7.1 per cent (2.9 per cent), respectively.

As per the `use-based' classification of the IIP, the bulk of the growth is being driven by capital and consumer goods. The index for capital goods has soared by 19.2 per cent in October and 15.1 per cent during April-October 2004, as against the corresponding year-on-year growth rates of 4.9 per cent and 9.2 per cent for October 2003 and April-October 2003, respectively.

During October, the annual growth rate for consumer durables was estimated at 15.5 per cent (against 13 per cent in October 2003), while corresponding being 13.4 per cent (7.2 per cent) for consumer non-durables, 6.8 per cent (4.3 per cent) for basic goods and 6.7 per cent (6.3 per cent) for intermediate goods.

For April-October 2004, the cumulative year-on-year growth amounted to 15.9 per cent (7.7 per cent during April-October 2003) for consumer durables, 8.1 per cent (8.6 per cent) for consumer non-durables, 5.4 per cent (4.3 per cent) for basic goods and 7.6 per cent (5.2 per cent) for intermediate goods.