The government is set to publish the IIP numbers for July today, 12 September 2012.
The IIP is a composite indicator that measures the short-term changes in the production of a basket of industrial goods.
The figures are used as a short-term indicator to identify whether a country’s industrial output has declined or increased over a certain period.
The Government of India’s Central Statistics Office (CSO) compiles and publishes the IIP numbers every month in comparison with a base year for reference.
The base year of IIP has been revised successively with the latest revision shifting the base year to 2004-05.
The index now covers 682 items. Mining and quarrying, manufacturing and electricity have a weightage of 14.16 per cent, 75.53 per cent, and 10.32 per cent, respectively.
The all-India IIP was first released by the Office of Economic Adviser under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry with 1937 as the base year.
June 2012 IIP numbers were a shocker – they fell 1.8 per cent from the year-ago period against expectations of a 1 per cent growth.
It is necessary to revise the IIP periodically by changing its base year to a more recent period in order to capture the changes in the structure and composition of the industry over time due to technological changes, economic reforms and consumption pattern
India’s industrial output likely increased to 0.5 per cent in July 2012, after falling sharply by 1.8 per cent in June 2012, according to a median of 19 analyst estimates polled by NDTV.
