NEW DELHI -- India's factory output rose 5.7% in November, the first month of the government's demonetisation drive, while retail inflation declined to 3.41% in December from 3.63% in the month before, official data showed on Thursday.
The factory output, as per the Index of Industrial Production (IIP), had declined by 1.81% in October and a 3.4 % slide in the corresponding month of 2016.
As per the IIP data released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO), the rise was mainly on account of a 5.5% increase in manufacturing output, which also has the maximum weight in the overall index.
Among the other two major sub-indices, electricity generation increased by 8.9% while that for mining output was up by 3.9%.
The cumulative growth of the country's factory output inched up by 0.4% in the first seven months of the current fiscal, as against cumulative growth of 3.8% during the corresponding period of last fiscal.
Retail inflation, according to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) data, eased last month from 5.61% reported during the corresponding period last year.
The fall in CPI was mainly due to a drop in the annual food inflation -- to 1.37% in December from 2.03% in November.
The CPI data revealed that the annual retail inflation for rural India was 3.83%, while that for the urban centres was 2.90%. The annual food inflation was 2.06% in rural areas and 0.15% in the urban conclaves.
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