MoSPI moved the Index of Industrial Production to a 2022-23 base in June 2026. For the three years both series cover, the new index shows faster industrial growth (5.7% rather than 4.0% in 2024-25), and in 14 industry-years the two disagree on whether output rose or fell, so IIP figures quoted before and after the switch cannot be read against each other.
India’s Old Factory Index Said Electronics Output Fell 11% in 2023-24. The New One Says It Rose 20%
In June 2026 the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) replaced the Index of Industrial Production’s 2011-12 base with 2022-23. The new index is published from April 2023, so for three financial years, 2023-24 to 2025-26, India has two official measures of the same factories, mines and power plants. They do not agree. For all industry the new series runs faster, by 0.9 percentage points in 2023-24 and 1.7 points in 2024-25. Inside manufacturing, for some industries, the two series do not even agree on direction.
The sharpest case is electronics. On the old base, output of computer, electronic and optical products fell 11.3% in 2023-24, the year smartphone assembly under the production-linked incentive scheme was breaking records. On the new base, the same industry grew 19.9%.
What changed in the index
The basket was rebuilt from what Indian industry makes now. MoSPI’s new series tracks 1,042 products in 463 item groups, against 839 items in 407 groups in the 2011-12 series, and it adds a fourth sector, water supply, sewerage and waste management, to mining, manufacturing and electricity. Electricity becomes “electricity and gas supply”, with separate indices for renewable and non-renewable power, and mining is split into fuel, metallic and non-metallic minerals. The two series are joined by a linking factor computed with a geometric mean at the level of the general and sectoral indices.
Weights moved with the economy. In the 2011-12 series manufacturing carried 77.6% of the index, mining 14.4% and electricity 8.0%. Summaries of MoSPI’s new release give manufacturing about 76.1%, mining about 11.1% and electricity and gas about 10.9%, leaving roughly 2% for the new water and waste sector; check these against MoSPI’s own technical note before relying on them.
Three years, two answers
| Growth over previous year (%) | 2023-24 | 2024-25 | 2025-26 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Old base | New base | Old base | New base | Old base | New base | |
| All industry (general index) | 5.9 | 6.8 | 4.0 | 5.7 | 4.1 | 4.3 |
| Mining | 7.5 | 2.2 | 3.0 | 2.8 | 1.4 | 3.7 |
| Manufacturing | 5.5 | 7.1 | 4.1 | 6.0 | 5.0 | 4.8 |
| Electricity (new: electricity & gas) | 7.1 | 7.4 | 5.2 | 5.2 | 1.0 | 0.8 |
| Water supply, sewerage & waste (new sector) | – | 17.8 | – | 11.9 | – | 6.4 |
Growth of the annual index over the previous year. Old base: 2011-12=100; new base: 2022-23=100. Source: MoSPI, IIP annual indices (eSankhyiki), retrieved 9 October 2026.
The gap is largest in 2024-25 and almost closes in 2025-26 (4.3% against 4.1%). Mining is where the series differ most at the sector level: the old index had mining up 7.5% in 2023-24, the new one 2.2%, and in 2025-26 the order reverses (1.4% old, 3.7% new). Power is close in every year, but the new split shows what the total hides: in 2025-26 renewable generation rose 18.8% and non-renewable generation fell 4.1%.
The use-based groups move as much. Capital goods grew 10.4% in 2025-26 on the new base against 8.3% on the old; consumer durables grew 3.1% against 5.9%, so the new index has investment goods doing better and household durables worse than the old one said.
| Use-based group, growth (%) | 2023-24 | 2024-25 | 2025-26 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Old base | New base | Old base | New base | Old base | New base | |
| Primary goods | 6.1 | 5.4 | 3.9 | 4.7 | 1.2 | 2.3 |
| Capital goods | 6.3 | 10.1 | 5.6 | 7.9 | 8.3 | 10.4 |
| Intermediate goods | 5.3 | 6.1 | 4.3 | 5.9 | 5.5 | 5.2 |
| Infrastructure/construction goods | 9.7 | 10.4 | 6.7 | 6.8 | 9.8 | 8.8 |
| Consumer durables | 3.6 | 5.0 | 7.9 | 8.4 | 5.9 | 3.1 |
| Consumer non-durables | 4.1 | 7.7 | −1.5 | 3.6 | 0.1 | 0.8 |
Source: MoSPI, IIP annual indices by use-based classification, both bases.
Where the stories diverge
Across 23 two-digit manufacturing industries and three years, 14 industry-years change sign between the series; in 13 of them the old base showed a fall and the new base shows growth. The twelve largest gaps:
| Industry (2-digit NIC) | Year | Old base growth (%) | New base growth (%) | Difference (percentage points) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Computer, electronic & optical | 2023-24 | −11.3 | 19.9 | +31.2 |
| Other manufacturing | 2025-26 | −14.9 | −0.9 | +14.0 |
| Leather | 2024-25 | −3.5 | 10.2 | +13.7 |
| Tobacco | 2023-24 | −8.3 | 3.2 | +11.5 |
| Electrical equipment | 2024-25 | 22.4 | 11.5 | −10.9 |
| Other manufacturing | 2023-24 | −6.2 | 4.3 | +10.5 |
| Other manufacturing | 2024-25 | −4.6 | 5.9 | +10.5 |
| Textiles | 2023-24 | 0.1 | 9.8 | +9.7 |
| Furniture | 2024-25 | 16.8 | 7.6 | −9.2 |
| Printing | 2024-25 | −6.0 | 2.7 | +8.7 |
| Wearing apparel | 2023-24 | −14.1 | −5.6 | +8.5 |
| Beverages | 2024-25 | 3.2 | 11.2 | +8.0 |
Most of the gaps are what a basket change would produce. An index weighted to 2011-12 output carries that year’s products and that year’s weights, and electronics, where the product mix has changed most since then, shows the widest gap. Not every gap runs the same way: electrical equipment grew 22.4% in 2024-25 on the old base but 11.5% on the new, and furniture 16.8% against 7.6%. This blog could not find an item-by-item reconciliation from MoSPI, so for any one industry the reason for the gap is a reasonable reading, not a finding.
Why it matters
The IIP is one of the inputs to quarterly estimates of manufacturing value added, and it sits behind the Reserve Bank’s reading of the industrial cycle and most claims about whether an industrial scheme worked. A statement made before June 2026 that “electronics production fell in 2023-24” was true of the index then published and is false of the index published now. Growth rates quoted from the two series cannot be compared, and a long run of IIP growth that crosses April 2023 will be spliced from both unless the reader is told.
The latest months are on the new base only: August 2026 output was 8.0% higher than a year earlier, with manufacturing up 9.0% and mining down 5.6%, after 8.8% in June and 7.4% in July.
What would fix this
- MoSPI should publish a linked back series on the 2022-23 base from 2012-13 at the two-digit industry and use-based level, not only a linking factor for the general and sectoral indices, so a growth series can run across the change without being spliced by each user.
- MoSPI should publish a bridge table for 2023-24 to 2025-26 that splits each industry’s old-versus-new difference into basket change, weights and price deflation, starting with the industries where the series disagree on direction.
- MoSPI should put the item basket and weights in eSankhyiki, the 1,042 products with their weights and data sources, in machine-readable form; the API currently stops at the two-digit industry.
- Ministries running production-linked incentive schemes (MeitY, DPIIT, the Department of Pharmaceuticals) should restate any output claims that rest on IIP growth on the new base, and say which base a figure uses.
These are proposals from this blog, not recommendations any agency has adopted.
Sources and caveats
Index values and growth rates: MoSPI, Index of Industrial Production, annual and monthly indices, 2011-12 and 2022-23 bases, through the eSankhyiki API (retrieved 9 October 2026); the industry rows are two-digit NIC divisions as MoSPI publishes them. August 2026: MoSPI quick estimates released 28 September 2026 (PIB). Basket size, sectors and linking method: MoSPI’s first release of the new series (June 2026) as summarised by Drishti IAS, Vision IAS and Policy Circle. 2011-12 weights: MoSPI press release of 12 May 2017. New-series weights are from secondary summaries and should be checked against MoSPI’s technical note. Annual figures from the API differ slightly from some press summaries (for example 5.7% rather than 6.4% for 2024-25 on the new base); this piece uses the API. Explanations for individual industry gaps are this blog’s reading, not MoSPI’s.
About this article: Researched, written and edited by Umashankar Triplicane Dwarakanathan, with AI research assistance; every figure is meant to trace to the primary source cited. See the Editorial Policy for how sourcing, AI use and corrections work.
