India’s industrial sector grew only 0.4% in October, showing its slowest improvement in the last 14 months. The new data has been shared by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI).
This slow growth happened mainly because manufacturing became weak and mining and electricity production fell.
In October last year, industrial output increased by 3.7%, which is much higher than this year’s 0.4%. Even in September 2025, growth was stronger at 4% (revised from 3.2%). The last time India saw such weak industrial growth was in August 2024, when growth was almost zero.
Experts say the weak growth shows that the industrial recovery is still uneven and fragile. Some reasons include:
An economist, N.R. Bhanumurthy, explained that since IIP is based on production volume, fewer working days during festivals reduced output.
October showed a mixed trend across different industrial sectors:
Manufacturing is the biggest part of the IIP (about 78%). In October, manufacturing grew only 1.8%, much lower than:
Mining output fell by 1.8% in October. In comparison, it had decreased by 0.4% in September but had grown by 0.9% last year.
Electricity production went down by 6.9% in October. In September, it had grown by 3.1%, and last year in October, it increased by 2%.
Madan Sabnavis, chief economist at Bank of Baroda, said that the industrial numbers send mixed signals. This is because GST collections showed strong consumption, but IIP numbers show slow production. He also said the rains and fewer working days affected mining and power production.
Different categories of goods performed differently in October:
Economists believe that October–December (Q3) will be very important for the industry. They expect that the impact of the new GST system and the reduced income-tax rates announced earlier may help improve consumer spending and push industrial growth.
This industrial data also came just after India reported a strong 8.2% GDP growth for July–September, showing that the economy overall is still performing well.
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