Industrial production falls record 16.7% in March on poor show by mining, manufacturing, electricity

New Delhi: India’s industrial production contracted by a record 16.7 percent in March, on account of the poor show by mining, manufacturing and electricity sectors mainly due to the nationwide lockdown, government data showed on Tuesday. The government had imposed the lockdown to contain COVID-19 from 25 March. The 16.7 percent fall in factory output is the sharpest since April 2012, based on the new series of IIP data with the base year 2011-12. The Index of Industrial Production (IIP) had grown by 2.7 percent in March, 2019. According to the National Statistical Office (NSO) data, manufacturing sector output fell 20.6 percent compared to a growth of 3.1 percent in the same month a year ago.

Electricity generation declined by 6.8 percent as against a growth of 2.2 percent in March 2019. The mining sector output remained flat compared to a growth of 0.8 percent earlier. The IIP in the last fiscal contracted by 0.7 percent from 3.8 percent expansion in 2018-19. The data for March showed that production of capital goods, a barometer of investment, declined by 35.6 percent as compared to a contraction of 9.1 percent in the same month previous year. As per use-based classification, primary good registered a contraction of 3.1 percent, intermediate goods 18.5 percent (-) and infrastructure/ construction goods 23.8 percent (-) in March 2020 over the same period the previous year. The consumer durables output fell 33.1 percent, while non-durables production slipped 16.2 percent in March. In terms of industries, 7 out of 23 industry groups in the manufacturing sector have shown positive growth in March 2020.