Industrial production contracted by 1.9% in November, entering the negative territory after a two-month gap, mainly due to poor showing by manufacturing and mining sectors, official data showed on Tuesday.
The manufacturing sector — which constitutes 77.63% of the index of industrial production (IIP) — recorded a contraction of 1.7% in November 2020, as per data released by the National Statistical Office (NSO).
Mining sector output too witnessed a decline, shrinking 7.3%. However, power generation grew 3.5% in the month under review.
The IIP had grown by 2.1% in November 2019.
Industrial production had plunged 18.7% in March last year following the COVID-19 outbreak and remained in the negative zone till August 2020.
With the resumption of economic activities, factory output posted a flat growth of 0.48% in September.
The IIP growth for October has been revised upwards to 4.9 per cent from last month's provisional estimates of 3.6%.
The government had imposed a lockdown to contain the spread of COVID-19 infections on March 25, 2020.
With the gradual relaxation of restrictions, there has been a relative improvement in the economic activities by varying degrees as well as in data reporting, the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation had said in a statement issued in November.
The ministry had also given a disclaimer that it may not be appropriate to compare the IIP in the post-pandemic months with the data for months preceding the COVID-19 outbreak.
The manufacturing sector had recorded a growth of 3% in November 2019.
Similarly, mining sector output grew 1.9%, but electricity generation shrank by 5% in November 2019.
The output of capital goods, which is a barometer of investment, fell by 7.1% in November 2020 as against a contraction of 8.9 per cent earlier.
Consumer durables output fell by 0.7%, compared to 1.4% contraction in November 2019.
Consumer non-durable goods production fell by 0.7%, compared to a growth of 1.1% a year ago.
The IIP for the April-November period has contracted by 15.5%, according to the data. It had registered a flat growth of 0.3% during the same period last fiscal.