New Delhi: The government has released full data from the Industrial Production Index (IIP) for April, as in the same year last year, due to the COVID-19 restriction.
Last year in June, the National Statistics Office (NSO) held back the release of complete IIP data due to the effect of the nationwide exclusion on factory production.
Also this year, industrial production was hit due to restrictions by countries hitting the second wave of the pandemic.
According to the partial data released by the NSO on Friday, the IIP (general index) stood at 126.6 points in April this year.
The IIP was at 54 points in April 2020 and at 126.5 points in April 2019. Industrial production shrank by 57.3 percent in April 2020.
According to the partial data, the growth of IIP was 134 percent in April 2021 in the same month last year, mainly due to the low base effect.
However, industrial growth was low compared to April 2019.
This indicates that the emerging economic recovery has been affected by the second wave of the pandemic.
In a statement, NSO said: ‘It can be noted that the nationwide exclusion and other measures implemented to limit its spread Covid-19 Pandemic from the end of March 2020 resulted in a majority of enterprises not operating in April 2020, and consequently there were many units that reported the production ‘Zero’, which is the comparison of the indices for the months April 2020 and April 2021. “Therefore, ‘the indices for April 2021 are not strictly comparable to April 2020,’ he added.
The Center applied for a nationwide closure on 25 March 2020 to limit its spread COVID-19. The government started from 20 April 2020 to close restrictions for certain economic activities.
This year, the second wave pandemic began in mid-April, which also affected production in factories due to local restrictions imposed by states.
The NSO said that the indices of industrial production for the mining, manufacturing and electricity sectors for April 2021 stand at 108, 125.1 and 174 points respectively.
According to the use-based classification, the indices were at 126.7 for primary goods, 82.4 for capital goods, 137.9 for intermediate goods and 134.8 for infrastructure / construction goods for April 2021.
Furthermore, the indices for consumer-durable and non-durable consumers were 112.4 and 142.3, respectively.
The IIP recorded 5.2 percent growth in February last year. It shrank by 18.7 percent in March 2020.
Source: Telangana Today