IIP contracts by 4.3% for the second straight month in September

Industrial growth shrunk for the second straight month in September, contracting by 4.3% , the most in nearly 6 years. The slide was mainly due to poor performance in the manufacturing sector, according to official data released on Monday. It is the steepest fall since October 2011.

Factory output, measured in terms of Index of Industrial Production, had expanded 4.6 per cent in September 2018.

The figures had shrunk by 1.1% in August after a gap of 26 months. The numbers are not encouraging for an economy that slipped further in the second quarter of the current financial year after hitting a six-year low of 5 percent in the first quarter.

In terms of industries, seventeen out of the twenty three industry groups in the manufacturing sector have shown negative growth during the month of September 2019 as compared to the corresponding month of the previous year.

The core sector for the month of September contracted massively by 5.2 per cent from the 0.5 per cent contraction seen in August. The index was dragged down by coal mining which came in at -20.5 per cent.

The numbers for the same month last year stood at 4.3 per cent. The cumulative growth during the period of April-September 2019-20 was 1.3 per cent.