Industrial production declined 16.7 percent in March 2020 as against 2.7% in March 2019, the Government of India declared on Tuesday, 12 May.
According to The Hindu BusinessLine (HB), this is the biggest fall among all the data series collected with base years of 1980-81, 1993-94, 2004-05 and 2011-12.
The government has not released the headline retail inflation number for April as there were very limited transactions in the market, according to HB.
The output of India's eight major industries had crashed in March 2020 by 6.5 percent from a rise of 7.1 per centreported in February, 2020, IANS had reported
The massive magnitude of March’s fall was also evident on year-on-year basis. The Index of Eight Core Industries had risen by 5.8 per cent in March 2019. The eight core industries include coal, crude oil, natural gas, refinery products, fertilisers, steel, cement and electricity.
As per the ECI, barring crude oil, natural gas and steel, all other sectors expanded in February. The ECI comprises over 40 percent of the weight of items included in the Index of Industrial Production (IIP).
(With inputs from The Hindu BusinessLine and IANS.)
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