Factories' IIP rose by 5.5 pc in March
As the government has rescheduled this data to April 28, it has also revised downward the industrial growth figure to 2.7 per cent for February 2025 from the provisional estimate of 2.9 per cent released earlier this month
New Delhi: Growing at a steady pace, India’s industrial output stood at 3 per cent in March from 2.9 percent in the month of February. On an annual basis, the growth in March was down from 5.5 per cent in the corresponding month of the previous fiscal, mainly due to poor performance of manufacturing, mining and power sectors, the data by ministry of statistics and programme implementation showed on Monday.
As per the ministry’s data, the factory output, measured in terms of the index of industrial production or IIP, rose by 5.5 per cent in March 2024. As the government has rescheduled this data to April 28, it has also revised downward the industrial growth figure to 2.7 per cent for February 2025 from the provisional estimate of 2.9 per cent released earlier this month.
In the fiscal 2024-25, the data showed, the IIP decelerated to a four-year low of 4 per cent. It was 5.9 per cent in 2023-24 and the previous low was recorded at -8.4 per cent in 2020-21. “The growth was 11.4 per cent in 2021-22 and 5.2 per cent in 2022-23,” it showed.
According to the data, the growth rates of the three sectors, mining, manufacturing and electricity for the month of March 2025 are 0.4 percent, 3.0 percent and 6.3 percent respectively. “Power output also slowed to 6.3 per cent in March 2025 against 8.6 per cent in the year-ago period,” the data showed.
Amid the US trade war, economists and analysts, however, are keeping their fingers crossed whether this IIP numbers will improve in the coming days. “Looking ahead, while there is some evidence and commentary around frontloading in exports to the US, we need to see whether this is driven by redirection away from other geographies or a bump up in output in the ongoing month,” said Aditi Nayar, chief economist & head (research & outreach) at Icra.
Commenting on the data, Nayar also said that in sequential terms, the improvement in year-on-year growth of electricity and mild uptick in that of manufacturing was offset to a large extent by the dip in the growth of mining.
“As the IIP growth for March came in slightly lower than our forecast of 3.3 per cent, it is possible that the lower response rate associated with the preponing of the data release has dampened the estimated growth rate, which may subsequently undergo a relatively larger revision as compared to that seen in the past,” she said.
