India’s new Index of Industrial Production (IIP) series will track items such as Monazite and credit and debit cards with magnetic strips, drop products such as kerosene and sewing machines, and introduce an entirely new sub-sector for water supply, sewerage and waste management. The revised series also gives greater weight to intermediate goods than primary goods. Reflecting these quantitative and qualitative changes, the new IIP series shows stronger industrial growth over the past three years than the previous series, in line with manufacturing growth trends seen in the revised GDP series released on February 27.
The National Statistics Office (NSO) released the new IIP series, India’s official high-frequency gauge of industrial activity, on Monday. The latest revision is the tenth such update and shifts the base year to 2022-23 from 2011-12.
As for the latest data point, IIP grew 4.9% in April 2026, up from 3.2% in March, suggesting limited disruption to industrial activity from the ongoing conflict in West Asia.
The back series released along with the new index shows that industrial growth rate was faster in 2023-24, 2024-25 and 2025-26 than previously estimated. The revised series shows IIP growth of 6.7%, 6.4%, and 4.3% in those years compared with 5.9%, 4.1%, and 4.1%, respectively, under the old series.
To be sure, a higher growth rate does not mean just statistical jugglery in the IIP numbers. The new series has seen significant qualitative changes at both macro and granular level.
IIP now has an entire new sub-sector — “water supply and sewerage” — and expands the number items tracked to 463 from 407 in the 2011-12. A total of 120 new items such as Monazite (a critical mineral), CCTV cameras, and credit/debit cards with magnetic stripe have been added, while 64 items (such as kerosene, fluorescent tubes and CFLs, sewing machines) have been removed. As a result, only 343 item groups are common to both series.
The items were selected for the new series depending on their share in the 2021-22 and 2022-23 rounds of the Annual Survey of Industries (ASI). The previous series, which gave IIP data up to March 2026, used the 2010-11 and 2011-2 rounds of the ASI.
New sectors and new items have also led to a redistribution of weights. Inter-sectoral weights were updated on the basis of the Gross Value Added (GVA) data from the 2022-23 National Account Statistics (NAS) of the 2022-23 base year. Intra-sector weights were distributed on the basis of the 2022-23 ASI.
Manufacturing’s weight has decreased only marginally: from 77.6% to 76.1%. Mining and quarrying’s weight has decreased from 14.4% to 11.1%, while electricity’s weight has increased from 8% to 10.9%. The newly added “Water Supply, Sewerage & Waste Management” sector has a weight of 2%.
The revised index has also altered the weights of different groups in the use-based composition. The weights of primary goods has changed from 34.1% to 31.1%; of capital goods from 8.2% to 8.1%; of intermediate goods from 17.2% to 22.4%; of infrastructure/construction goods from 12.3% to 10.9%; of consumer durables from 12.8% to 11.3%; and of consumer non-durables from 15.3% to 16.1%.
Manufacturing sector expanded 6.2% in April, the fastest since December, when it grew 7.9%. Mining contracted for the fourth consecutive month at 5.1%. Electricity and gas supply expanded 4.9%, the fastest since February, when it grew 8.6%. Water supply and sewerage expanded 6.6%, the fastest since August 2025, when it rose 6.9%.
According to analysts, the impact of the West Asia conflict on industrial output appeared minimal In April. “In terms of the impact on industrial output from the Middle East conflict (from energy price rises/ shortages of inputs), we note that output in the ‘manufacture of chemicals’ recovered somewhat in April (to 0.4% y/y from -4.9% in March), which corroborates our view that peak shortages for industrial inputs (from gas and petrochemicals rationing) seen in March saw gradual improvement in supply in April and May,” Aastha Gudwani, India Chief Economist at Barclays said in a note.
