The Annual Survey of Industries (ASI) 2008-09 data unveiled on Friday show up the yawning gap between the annual growth rates disclosed by the two official Government measures – ASI and Index of Industrial Production (IIP).
The ASI industrial growth rate was much higher than what the IIP data reported for the year 2008-09. The ASI data pegged the industrial growth at 8.73 per cent, whereas IIP's manufacturing sector data clocked a meagre 3.35 per cent.
The discrepancy between the two official data from the Government is because of the greater accuracy in data collected for ASI.
“The Annual Survey of Industries is based on the finalised accounts of industries as of September of the financial year,” said Mr T.C.A. Anant, Chief Statistician of India and Secretary Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation. He added that the IIP data are collected from various sources over the course of a month, resulting in a time lag.
Tamil Nadu shines
A section of economists also believes that the IIP data are losing out on accuracy as all other industrial growth indicators continue to be robust. In recent months, IIP data has also received flak for the volatility that has creeped into the industrial growth indicator. According to Mr Anant, volatility has now become a structural feature of the IIP data.
The survey also revealed that Tamil Nadu houses the highest number of working factories, accounting for 16.82 per cent in the country, followed by Maharashtra at 13.17 per cent.
Tamil Nadu is amongst the top three States with the highest share of the invested capital. Maharashtra topped the list at 17.01 per cent, followed by Gujarat at 16.08 per cent and Tamil Nadu at 9.57 per cent.
Wages on the rise
The annual survey for 2008-09 revealed that average annual wage of factory workers rose by over 9 per cent to Rs 68,103 per worker in 2008-09 as compared with Rs 62,246 in the year before.
Efficiency, as measured by changes in the capital-output ratio, declined marginally. While it was 0.17 in 2007-08, it dipped to 0.16 in 2008-09.
Rising Number of Factories
The number of factories in the country increased by 6.1 per cent to 1.55 lakh in 2008-09 as against 1.46 lakh in the previous year.
However, only 274 factories (0.18 per cent of the total factories) employed more than 5,000 people.
Almost 72 per cent of the factories had only 0-49 employees.
The capital invested in factories during the period increased by 19.92 per cent to Rs 15.35 lakh crore.
But despite the positive findings of the survey, Mr Anant said that the findings did not adequately reflect the impact of the recession. “Recession carried on till mid-September 2009 and hence could not be entirely captured,” he said.