Factory output growth hits a low

The Indian industry has expressed its concern over the country's factory output continuing to grow at below-expected level, expanding just 3.7 percent in January compared to 2.53 percent during the month before and 16.8 percent in the like month of last fiscal, official data showed Friday. The drag was mainly on account of a mere 3.3 percent growth in manufacturing, which has a weight of nearly 80 percent in the general index for industrial production and 1.6 percent in mining, which has been assigned a weight of 10.47 percent. "On the other hand, the recovery in consumer non-durables in this month's data is a welcome sign that consumer budgets are easing," CII director general Chandrajit Banerjee said in a statement. The industry also holds that till hyper inflation conditions are reversed and normalcy is restored in the developed economies, policy makers need to show more caution about the robustness of industrial recovery.