India's industrial growth, as measured by the Index of Industrial Production (IIP), during the first five months of the current fiscal, is the worst in a decade at -0.27 per cent, Mintreported citing Bloomberg data.
In contrast, industrial growth stood at 18.14 in the first five months in 2007-2008 fiscal, showing a steep decline in factory and industrial growth.
The industrial growth rate is also worse than the five-month period in fiscal 2009, just following the collapse of Lehman Brothers, which triggered the global financial crisis.
So far this year, the manufacturing sector shrank by 1.18 per cent, the lowest in five years, with declines seen in the capital goods sector, which shrank by 21.46 per cent. The consumer non-durable goods category has also fared the worst in the last five years, shrinking by 2.8 per cent, exacerbated by the drought in the last two years, according to the report.
In August, India's industrial output contracted for a second straight month, falling by 0.7 percent from a year earlier, led by declines in mining and manufacturing production, government data showed on Monday.
Economists surveyed by Reuters had forecast a 0.2 percent annual fall in output compared with a revised 2.5 percent year-on-year decline in July.
With Reuters inputs