Mumbai: Industrial production in the country increased by 13.6 per cent in April thanks to robust growth in manufacturing sector that belied an expected slowdown due to earlier interest rate hikes by the Reserve Bank of India aimed at easing inflationary pressures.

The index of industrial production (IIP) grew by 13.6 per cent as against 9.9 per cent in April 2006, as manufacturing rose by a blazing 15.1 per cent up from 11 per cent a year ago.

As per the quick estimates of industrial production released by the Central Statistical Organization (CSO), industrial production in India registered a healthy growth of 13.6 per cent in April 2007 as compared to 9.9 per cent in April 2006. Industrial growth during 2006-07 went up by 11.5 per cent as compared to 8.2 per cent registered in the previous year. This is the highest growth of the industrial sector since 1995-96.

The manufacturing sector, which has about 80v per cent weightage in the IIP, has registered a record growth of 15.1 per cent in April 2007 as compared to 11.0 per cent in April 2006. Earlier, a record growth of 12.5 per cent was achieved during 2006-07 in the manufacturing sector, which augurs well for the 11th Plan, wherein a growth of 12 per cent for the manufacturing sector has been envisaged.

The mining and quarrying sector has shown a growth of 3.4 per cent, whereas the electricity sector has registered a growth of 8.7 per cent during April 2007. The industries that have performed well in April 2007 include wood and wood products; furniture & fixtures registering growth rates of 92.2 per cent, food products (55.0 per cent), machinery and equipment (19.2 per cent) basic metal and alloy industries'' (18.0 per cent), Jute and other vegetable fibre textiles (17.7 per cent), leather and leather & fur products ( 14.7 per cent) and rubber, plastic, petroleum and coal products (14.1 per cent).

Among the use-base economic sub-groups, both consumer goods and capital goods have posted impressive rates of 17.7 per cent during April 2007. Basic goods, intermediate goods have recorded growth of 8.9 per cent and 12.6 per cent during April 2007.

The high growth in the first month of the new fiscal also triggered concerns about the economy overheating, but the government promised steps to dampen demand where it was high.

"Intention is to constrain demand in those sectors where there are signs of what you call overheating and example of that could be real estate and housing. I think in these sectors there is reduction in demand," finance minister P Chidambaram said.

But bankers feel it is too early to be worrying about a fresh round of rate hikes and monetary policy tightening by reserve bank, as inflation has eased to a comfortable 4.85 per cent during the week ended May 26.

The industrial numbers hold out the promise of another year of rapid growth on the back of 9.4 per cent GDP expansion in 2006-07.