Industrial production growth down; Chidambaram takes dig at govt

New Delhi: Former finance minister P Chidambaram today attacked the government for the slip in industrial production growth and said that retail inflation had hit a five-month high.

The senior Congress leader’s comments came in the wake of reports that industrial production growth slipped to a seven-month low of 3.2 per cent in May, mainly, due sluggish performance of the manufacturing and the power sectors coupled with poor offtake of fast moving consumer goods (FMCG).

“Retail inflation hits 5-month high, industrial growth (IIP) slumps to 7-month low. ‘Achhe Din’ is around the corner. Outgoing CEA (chief economic advisor) says demonetisation certainly contributed to deceleration of the economy. As we had predicted, it cost 1.5% of GDP,” he tweeted.

Factory output growth, measured in terms of the Index of Industrial Production (IIP), was revised down to 4.8 per cent in April from the previous estimate of 4.9 per cent, according to the data released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) yesterday.

The IIP had expanded by 2.9 per cent in May last year. The previous low of industrial production growth was 1.8 per cent in October 2017. During April-May of this fiscal, the IIP recorded a growth of 4.4 per cent as compared to 3.1 per cent in same period year ago.