India’s Industrial Production Growth Decelerated to a Six-Month Low of 2.9 PC in Feb. 2025

 New Delhi: With the poor show in the manufacturing, mining and power sectors among others, India’s industrial production growth decelerated to a six-month low of 2.9 per cent in February 2025. The previous low was recorded in August last year when the growth remained flat at zero percent, the government data showed on Friday.

As per the data, the factory output, measured in terms of the Index of Industrial Production or IIP, rose by 5.6 per cent in February 2024. The Centre also revised upward the industrial growth figure to 5.2 per cent for January 2025 from the provisional estimate of 5 per cent released in March.

According to the data released by the ministry of statistics & programme implementation, the manufacturing sector’s output growth slowed to 2.9 per cent in February 2025, down from 4.9 per cent in the year-ago month. “Mining production growth dipped to 1.6 per cent from 8.1 per cent a year ago. Power output growth also slowed to 3.6 per cent in February 2025 from 7.6 per cent in the year-ago period,” the data showed.

However, the ministry said in a statement that the quick estimates of IIP stands at 151.3 against 147.1 in February 2024, while the growth rates of the three sectors — mining, manufacturing and electricity for the month of February 2025 are 1.6 percent, 2.9 percent and 3.6 percent respectively.

“The Indices of industrial production for the mining, manufacturing and electricity sectors for the month of February 2025 stand at 141.9, 148.6 and 194.0 respectively. The top three positive contributors for the month of February 2025 are – manufacture of basic metals (5.8 per cent), manufacture of motor vehicles, trailers and semi-trailers (8.9 per cent) and manufacture of other non-metallic mineral products (8.0 per cent),” it said.

The data showed that the previous low was recorded in August last year when the growth remained flat at zero percent. “As expected, the leap year base pulled down the year-on-year or YoY growth of the IIP to 2.9 per cent in February 2025 from 5.2 per cent in January 2025. The deceleration was broad-based, with all the use-based categories, as well as two of the three sectors barring electricity, witnessing a slower growth in February 2025 vis-a-vis the previous month.

“While the growth performance of mining is expected to deteriorate in March 2025 relative to February 2025, this is likely to be offset by an uptick in electricity generation, amid steady manufacturing growth,” Icra chief economist Aditi Nayar said.

In the April-February FY25, the IIP grew 4.1 per cent, down from 6 per cent recorded in the corresponding period of the preceding fiscal. As per use-based classification, the capital goods segment growth accelerated to 8.2 per cent in February 2025 against 1.7 per cent in the year-ago period. “Consumer durables (or white goods production) grew 3.8 per cent during the reporting month against a growth of 12.6 per cent in February 2024,” the data showed.