Growth to show improvement in current fiscal: Montek Singh Ahluwalia

According to official data released today,industrial growth has slipped to 0.6 per cent in February this year due to contraction in power generation and mining output and poor performance of manufacturing sector.

Factory output,as measured by the Index of Industrial Production IIP,had grown by 4.3 per cent in February last year. IIP had growth at 2.4 per cent in January this year.

8220;Obviously the industrial growth is very low. It is due to mining sector. There are problems in mining sector which I hope will get sorted out8221;,Ahluwalia said.

The mining output in February this year too contracted by 8.1 per cent,compared to a growth in production by 2.3 per cent in the same month of 2012.

For the April-February period,the production in the sector showed a decline of 2.5 per cent,against contraction of 2.1 per cent in the year-ago period.