Industrial growth at 7.1 pc in July

Industrial growth recovered to 7.1 percent in July from the dismal performance in previous two months of the current fiscal, even though it moderated compared with 8.3 percent recorded a year ago.

The improved data may give some breather to the Government and RBI, struggling hard to check the double-digit inflation through tightening monetary policy, which hampers the growth process.

While the manufacturing, which contributes about 80 percent to IIP, grew by 7.5 percent in July, compared with 8.8 percent a year ago, electricity generation was up by 4.5 percent, against 7.5 percent.

Mining output growth, however, was quite higher at 5 percent from 3.2 percent a year ago.

The growth in industrial production, as measured by the Index of Industrial Production (IIP), was low at 3.8 percent in May and 5.4 percent in June.

In April, however, industrial growth stood at 7 percent, more or less same as in July.

As such, industrial growth turned out to be 5.7 percent in the first four months of this fiscal, against 9.7 percent a year ago.

The data came close to first quarterly economic growth figures at 7.9 percent and would play a crucial role for the GDP figures for the next quarter.

If, this trend continues and other sectors like agriculture and services also contribute, GDP figure may be quite higher for the second quarter, analysts said.