Expressing optimism over India’s growth prospects, NITI Aayog CEO B V R Subrahmanyam has said that India's industrial sector is growing at a fast pace and the country can now aim to achieve 9 per cent plus economic growth. He said India's manufacturing sector has been generating sufficient number of jobs. According to the Annual Survey of Industries (ASI) data by Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI), the number of persons employed in manufacturing industries rose 7.5 per cent in 2022-23 to 1.85 crore from 1.72 crore in the previous year.
A MoSPI statement said the estimated number of persons engaged in this sector in 2022-23 exceeded the pre-pandemic level (2018-19) by more than 22.14 lakh, and added that at the same time, average emolument also registered an increase over the previous year. Subrahmanyam said also observed that a lot of people (rating agencies and multilateral agencies) will be revising India's economic growth rate on the upper side. He added ‘We have wiped out the effect of Covid’.
According to the ASI data, the average emolument per person engaged in this sector had gone up by 6.3 per cent in 2022-23 in comparison to 2021-22. The number of total persons engaged in manufacturing industries increased to 1,84,94,962 in 2022-23 from 1,72,15,350 in 2021-22. The figure was 1,60,89,700 in 2020-21, 1,66,24,291 in 2019-20 and 1,62,80,211 in 2018-19. The results show that the Gross Value Added (GVA) grew by 7.3 per cent in current prices in 2022-23 over 2021-22. The increase in input was 24.4 per cent while output grew 21.5 per cent in the sector in 2022-23 over 2021-22.
The year 2022-23 witnessed a growth in this sector for majority of economic parameters like invested capital, input, output, GVA, employment and wages and it even surpassed the pre-pandemic level in absolute value terms. The main drivers of this growth in 2022-23 were industries like manufacture of basic metals, coke & refined petroleum products, food products, chemical and chemical products and motor vehicles. These industries, taken together, contributed about 58 per cent to the total output of the sector and showed output growth of 24.5 per cent and GVA growth of 2.6 per cent in comparison to 2021-22.