Cumulative growth rate of industry for latest period (April-August) has also recorded a downslide to 3.5% against from 5.5% in the previous year, as per the quick estimates for index of industrial production (IIP) released the Central Statistical Organisation (CSO) on Tuesday.

The improvement in August has been partly on account of better performance of manufacturing and electricity sectors, both of which have registered a rise, albeit by a minuscule margin, by 2% and 7.5% for the month.

For July, their growth stood at 1.2% and 5.1%. The manufacturing sector, on the other hand, has shown a substantial decline to 0.6% from that of the previous month when it stood at 2.9%.

However, seen on a cumulative basis, the manufacturing sector has recorded adeceleration in growth rate to 3.2% for the period April-August as compared to 5.4% during the same period last year.

The electricity sector has registered a growth of 8.8% in the first five months as compared to 6.8% growth attained in the same period in the previous year. Seen at a use-based classification level, a major decline has come about in capital goods, consumer goods, consumer non-durables which have witnessed growth at (-) 1.6%, (-) 1.0% and (-) 1.5% for August. The growth in these sectors in same month of the previous year stood at 8.6%, 4.1% and 4.3%.

On the other hand, segments like intermediate goods, consumer durables and basic goods have recorded growth of 5.2%, 0.3% and 3.9% for the latest month. This compares with 6.5%, 3.7% and 4.0% for August in the previous year. For the cumulative period April-August, the capital goods and consumer goods segments recorded 4.8% and 1.7% respectively over that of the previous year when the growth stood at 7.8% and 0.8%. Other segments like the basicgoods, intermediate goods and consumer durables have registered a growth of 3.4 per cent, 4.9 per cent and 0.6 per cent on a cumulative basis for April to August. Meanwhile, cumulative growth for consumer non-durables has registered a growth of 1.9 per cent for the latest period.