Public sector banks have received over 100 proposals from companies in 17 sectors during the October-December quarter of the current fiscal. These projects involve a total investment of over ₹4.50-lakh crore.

This also signals an upturn in the industry data which ended three-month long streak of contraction in January. However, experts are divided over further improvement in industries performance.

But they feel that if the RBI pauses on the rate on April 1, it will give some relief to industry. Industrial production registered a growth of 0.1 per cent in January.

According to data collected by the Finance Ministry, 103 new projects/proposals, with investment size of ₹250 crore or more in each have come in. The number of proposals is lower compared with the July-September quarter, but the investment amount is higher. It may be noted that banks got a total of 173 projects/proposals with total investment of over ₹3.24 lakh crore.

Although the commercial real estate sector topped the list in terms of number of proposals, but in value terms the power sector is way ahead of the other sectors. Iron & steel, telecom, oil & natural gas and Railway infrastructure are other leading sectors have pitched in with proposals.

Among the individual projects, NTPC leads the pack with ₹1.81 lakh crore followed by Jindal Steel and Power with ₹29,000 crore, NHPC with ₹26,910 crore, Aircel Ltd with ₹ 26,361 crore and ONGC Petro Additions with an investment of ₹21,396 crore.

Industrial recovery?

So is industry on the recovery path? Finance Ministry officials believe so and hope for better growth in the coming months. Even India Ratings has similar views.

“Although industrial growth is still fragile, it is likely to improve further mainly on account of an uptick in election related expenditure, the excise duty cut given to the auto sector and higher rural spending,” Sunil Kumar Sinha, Principal Economist with India Ratings, said.

However, economists with Nomura have a different view.

“Domestic demand has been weak for more than a year now, but slightly better external demand during July-September 2013 had lifted industrial growth marginally into positive territory. However, with exports again on a weaker trend, IIP growth could weaken in the next two months,” a note prepared by Sonal Varma and Aman Mohunta said.

Now all eyes are on the RBI. Sinha expects the central bank to maintain the status quo in its forthcoming monetary policy review on April 1 as retail inflation has come down to 8.1 per cent which is closer to the RBI’s target of below 8 per cent by January 2015.

Varma and Mohnunta also expect no change in the April review, but they continue to expect another 25 basis points rate hike to 8.25 per cent beyond April.

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