performance of the mining sector, India’s industrial production growth, based on the Index of Industrial Production (IIP), accelerated to a four-month high of 5.7 per cent in February 2024 as against 3.8 per cent in January 2024. The factory output growth was 6 per cent in February 2023. The previous high of IIP was recorded at 11.9 per cent in October 2023, which slowed to 2.5 per cent in November, 4.2 per cent in December and 4.1 per cent in January 2024. During the April-February period of 2023-24, IIP growth touched 5.9 per cent, up from 5.6 per cent in the year-ago period.
As per the data, the mining output growth accelerated to 8 per cent in February against 4.8 per cent in the year-ago month. The manufacturing sector’s output growth decelerated to 5 per cent in February against 5.9 per cent a year ago. The power generation growth also slowed to 7.5 per cent in February from 8.2 per cent growth in the same month of last year. The Indices of Industrial Production for the Mining, Manufacturing and Electricity sectors for the month of February 2024 stood at 139.6, 144.5 and 187.1 respectively.
As per use-base classification, the output of primary goods logged 5.9 per cent growth in February this year, down from 7 per cent a year ago. The capital goods segment growth fell to 1.2 per cent in February 2024 compared to 11 per cent in the year-ago period. The expansion in the intermediate goods segment was 9.5 per cent in the month under review, higher than the 1 per cent recorded in the same period a year ago. Infrastructure/construction goods reported a growth of 8.5 in February 2024 against a 9 per cent expansion in the year-ago period. In February this year, consumer durables output expanded 12.3 per cent. It had contracted by 4.1 per cent in February 2023. Consumer non-durable goods output declined by 3.8 per cent during the month compared to a 12.5 per cent expansion in February 2023.
The indices stood at 148.2 for Primary Goods, 106.2 for Capital Goods, 158.9 for Intermediate Goods and 179.8 for Infrastructure/ Construction Goods for the month of February 2024. Further, the indices for Consumer durables and Consumer non-durables stood at 121.6 and 148.9 respectively for the month of February 2024.