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Slowing Industrial Production: Reasons & Solutions
The Index of Industrial Production (IIP), considered as the representative of industrial growth in India witnessed the reduced growth of 2.7% in May 2015 making a dent on the tall claims of the government about the revival of high growth phase. The overall growth of the secondary sector for the month of April was also revised downward to 3.4% from the earlier estimated 4.1%.
The slowdown in the industrial growth was driven by the slow growth in manufacturing sector from 4.2% in April 2015 to 2.2% in May 2015. Among the sub-sectors of industry: mining and electricity sectors improved to 2.8% and 6% respectively but consumer good industry contracted by 1.6%.
The consumer durables and non-durables both saw the negative growth of -3.9% and -0.1% respectively. Capital goods also dragged the industrial growth as they saw a meagre 1.8% growth in May 2015 as compared to 6.8% in April 2015.
Despite the improvement in core sectors like electricity and mining, slower growth in capital goods indicate that business sentiments are still not strong enough to make companies add machinery to their production lines to increase the production.
Reasons of Slowdown
The negative growth of consumer goods was a significant drag on the industrial growth in May 2015. The demand for consumer goods has contracted in May 2015 due to low demand from rural areas. The unseasonal rainfall during the harvesting season in April resulted in heavy loss of rabi crops in general and wheat in particular adversely affecting the income of the farmers. Loss of income resulted in reduced demand from rural areas and ultimately affecting the growth of consumer goods.
Slow growth in capital goods and manufacturing indicated that investment climate is still not positive enough to usher high growth and signals the need of urgent reforms. Though government has made some moves to reduce the hassles in doing business in India, country still ranks low in doing business. Slow growth indicates that there is still a lot of scope to improve the investment climate. Reduced demand, infrastructural bottlenecks and many archaic laws are putting impediments for the high growth. When it is easy to do business in low cost countries like Bangladesh, Vietnam why would an international manufacturer invest in India. The cyclical upswing in demand can definitely improve the growth but this would not be sustainable.
Possible Solutions
As far as consumer demand from the rural sector is considered, it is likely to improve due to better than expected monsoon and we can see better growth of consumer sector during the third quarter. Reserve Bank on its part may reduce the interest rates to improve the investment climate as inflation is likely to remain within safe limits. But major thrust had to come from the government. However, ad hoc measures would only give a temporary boost to the growth.
For permanent solution, government must ensure positive and enabling environment. For that matter comprehensive reforms are required in every sector including labour relations, policy solutions, infrastructure improvements, energy reforms, financial reforms, skill enhancements etc. Along with aforesaid measures, bureaucratic hassles must be reduced to minimum because in comparison to other nations, red tapism plays a significant role in delaying the assured investments while denying the possible investments.
Moreover, government cannot bank on any one measure to usher growth but a holistic approach is required for a diverse growth that can gainfully absorb the increasing Indian work force.
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