India's industrial output growth crawls at 1.2%; inflation rises to 3.36%

New Delhi: India's industrial output expanded by 1.2 percent in July from a year earlier due to good performance of mining and electricity, government data showed on Tuesday.

The index of industrial production (IIP) growth was 4.5 percent in July 2016.

The factory output growth, measured on the Index of Industrial Production (IIP), for April-July period accelerated to 1.7 percent from 6.5 percent in the same period last fiscal, as per the data released by the Central Statistics Office.

Manufacturing sector, which constitutes over 77 percent of the index, showed a growth of 0.1 percent in July as compared to a growth of 5.3 percent in the same month last year.

The output of mining and electricity sectors during the month accelerated to 4.8 percent and 6.5 percent from 0.9 percent and 2.1 percent respectively in June last year.

Capital goods output, which is the barometer of investment, declined by 1 percent from a growth of 8.8 percent a year ago.

Meanwhile, retail inflation rose to a five- month high of 3.36 percent in August due to costlier vegetables and fruits. The consumer price index (CPI) based inflation stood at 2.36 percent in the previous month.

The August inflation number is the highest since March 2017, when it was recorded at 3.89 percent.