Inflation eases, IIP up

With the easing of food prices, India’s retail inflation, measured by the Consumer Price Index or CPI, slowed to 4.29 per cent in April 2021, while industrial output, measured by the Index of Industrial Production or IIP, grew 22.4 per cent in March 2021 as compared to 16.7 per cent in the same period a year-ago, government data showed on Wednesday.

The CPI data released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, however, showed that inflation in the food basket was 2.02 per cent in April, down from 4.87 per cent in the preceding month. The consumer retail inflation was predicted to cool to 4.2 per cent in April, just above the RBI’s 4 per cent target and down from March’s four-month high of 5.52 per cent, according to a Reuters poll which was taken over the past week.

Meanwhile, the industrial output, or IIP, on the whole grew 22.4 per cent in March 2021 as compared to 16.7 per cent in the same period a yearago. Despite the massive spread of Covid-19 across the country in its second wave, industrial activities were not hampered to a great extent.

A separate data, released by the National Statistics Office, also showed that the manufacturing sector output surged 25.8 per cent in March 2021. “Besides, mining output too climbed 6.1 per cent and power generation increased by 22.5 per cent in March. The IIP had shrunk by 18.7 per cent in March 2020,” it showed.

As per the data, during

2020-21, the IIP contracted

8.6 per cent compared to

0.8 per cent contraction in

2019-20. Industrial production has been hit due to the Covid-19 pandemic since March last year when it contracted by 18.7 per cent.

The IIP had registered a growth of 5.2 per cent in February last year.