Industrial output fell in the month of December from a year earlier, driven down by a contraction in consumer and capital goods production. It fell 0.4 per cent in December as per the data release by the government yesterday.<br/><br/>In November, industrial production belied all expectations of huge adverse impact of demonetisation with the index rising to a 13-month high of 5.7 per cent against a contraction of 1.8 percent in the previous month.<br/><br/>The cumulative growth of the country's factory output for the April-December period was 0.3 percent, much lower as compared to the cumulative growth of 3.2 percent during the corresponding period of the last fiscal. Manufacturing, which constitutes three-fourth of the index fell by 2 percent as compared to the 5.5 percent rise in November.<br/><br/>Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said, the contraction was due to fallout of demonetisation but expected a pick-up and greater expansion in the coming months.

Industrial output fell in the month of December from a year earlier, driven down by a contraction in consumer and capital goods production. It fell 0.4 per cent in December as per the data release by the government yesterday.<br/><br/>In November, industrial production belied all expectations of huge adverse impact of demonetisation with the index rising to a 13-month high of 5.7 per cent against a contraction of 1.8 percent in the previous month.<br/><br/>The cumulative growth of the country's factory output for the April-December period was 0.3 percent, much lower as compared to the cumulative growth of 3.2 percent during the corresponding period of the last fiscal. Manufacturing, which constitutes three-fourth of the index fell by 2 percent as compared to the 5.5 percent rise in November.<br/><br/>Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said, the contraction was due to fallout of demonetisation but expected a pick-up and greater expansion in the coming months.

Industrial production contracted to a four-month low of 0(point)4 per cent in December last year following demonetisation. It was 5.7 per cent in November. In December a year ago, the factory output measured in terms of Index of Industrial Production (IIP) had declined 0.9 per cent.<br/><br/>According to the data released by the Central Statistics Office yesterday, Industrial production declined on account of 2 per cent contraction in manufacturing sector, as against 1.9 per cent decline a year ago. <br/><br/>During the April-December period of the current fiscal, IIP growth remained almost flat at 0.3 per cent compared to 3.2 per cent growth in the nine month period of 2015-16.<br/>'<br/>Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said, the contraction was due to fallout of demonetisation but expected a pick-up and greater expansion in the coming months.