Manufacturing, mining pull down industrial output growth to 3.1% in May

Experts partially attribute slowdown to cut in spend during elections

Manufacturing and mining pulled down industrial output growth to 3.1 per cent in May, compared to 4.3 per cent in April. Experts partially attributed this to cut in private spending during elections. However, if one assesses growth in the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) in a longer series, the May numbers are not too disappointing. Except April, growth has been subdued since November 2018. IIP growth from November to March ranged from (0.1) per cent to 2.6 per cent. 

It was mainly electricity generation and fast moving consumer goods that proved to be the saviours for IIP numbers. While the former