The Large Scale Manufacturing (LSM) sector has showed modest improvement in July-March 2011-12 as the Quantum Index of Manufacturing (QIM) increased by 1.05 percent against the target of 2.0 percent compared to growth of 0.98 percent during the same period last year.

"Due to revision of the base year (which has been changed from 1999-00 to 2005-06) as well as new industries being added, it is not prudent to compare the performance of the LSM sector on the revised base against the official growth target of 2.0 percent", the Economic Survey added.

The methodology to compute Quantum Index of Manufacturing (QIM) was revised during the current fiscal year which included rebasing, addition of new industries and revision of weights.

The survey further added that the growth rate in Large Scale Manufacturing (LSM) has recovered, largely due to good performance among the sub categories such as food, beverages and tobacco, paper and board, textile, non-metallic mineral products, pharmaceutical and leather products compared to negative growth seen during the second quarter of the current fiscal year.

The Year to Year positive growth during the start of current fiscal year (July- Sep) can be partially attributed to export demand which has increased the production in the short run.

The group-wise analysis indicates some of the groups in the Large Scale Manufacturing (LSM) experienced a positive growth during the first nine months (July-March) of the current fiscal year.

The groups showing substantial increase include pharmaceutical (10.89 percent), paper and board (8.38 percent), wood product (7.39 percent), food beverages and tobacco (6.53 percent), non-metallic mineral products (2.87 percent), leather product (1.76 percent) and textile (0.77 percent).

However some sectors witnessed decline in production during July-March, 2011-12 including iron and steel products (28.47 percent), rubber products (24.63 percent), engineering products (10.19 percent), electronics (7.88 percent), coke and petroleum products (5.68 percent), chemicals (4.70 percent), automobiles (0.84 percent) and fertilizers (0.42 percent).

According to the survey, growth was mainly derived from consumer goods and food and pharmaceuticals showed the strongest contribution.

Some important items wise contribution in Large Scale Manufacturing growth witnessed in generating sets (143.88 percent), blankets (109.87 percent), electric transformer (31.15 percent), juices, syrups and squashes (26.68 percent), heavy machinery & equipment (20.99 percent), sugarcane machine (19.24 percent), electric tubes (17.86 percent), kerosene oil (14.56 percent), liquids/syrups (14.09 percent), footwear (6.15 percent) and LPG (3.44 percent).