India’s industrial output grew by 3 per cent in March 2025, a slight improvement from 2.7 per cent in February but down from 5.5 per cent in March 2024. This slowdown was primarily due to weaker performances in the manufacturing, mining, and power sectors.The government also revised February’s growth estimate to 2.7 per cent, down from an initial 2.9 per cent.
For fiscal year 2024-25, the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) expanded by 4 per cent, the lowest growth rate in four years, significantly lower than 5.9 per cent in 2023-24 and 11.4 per cent in 2021-22. The previous low was -8.4 per cent in 2020-21.
The National Statistics Office (NSO) data showed a slowdown across key sectors. Manufacturing grew by 3 per cent in March 2025, down from 5.9 per cent a year earlier. Mining output increased by only 0.4 per cent, a sharp decline from 1.3 per cent in March 2024. Power generation growth also eased, from 8.6 per cent to 6.3 per cent.
Aditi Nayar, Chief Economist at Icra, noted that while there was slight improvement in electricity and manufacturing growth, these gains were offset by the slowdown in mining. She said, “In sequential terms, the improvement in YoY (year-on-year) growth of electricity and mild uptick in that of manufacturing was offset to a large extent by the dip in the growth of mining”.
“Looking ahead, while there is some evidence and commentary around frontloading in exports to the US, we need to see whether this is driven by redirection away from other geographies or a bump up in output in the ongoing month,” she added.
Additionally, the use-based classification data showed mixed results. The capital goods sector saw growth decelerating to 2.4 per cent from 7 per cent in the previous year. Consumer durables (white goods) grew 6.6 per cent, slower than the 9.5 per cent growth in March 2024, while consumer non-durables contracted by 4.7 per cent, reversing the 5.2 per cent growth a year earlier.
The infrastructure and construction goods segment reported an 8.8 per cent growth, slightly up from 7.4 per cent in March 2024. Primary goods saw a modest increase of 3.1 per cent, compared to 3 per cent last year. The intermediate goods sector expanded by 2.3 per cent, down from 6.1 per cent in the previous year.
In a notable change, the NSO has moved up the release date of the IIP data to the 28th of each month, reducing the lag to four weeks from the previous six-week interval, when data was released on the 12th.
