India’s industrial sector is growing at a fast pace, said NITI Aayog CEO B.V.R. Subrahmanyam on Monday, while releasing the Annual Survey of Industries.

The report was released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation for the financial year 2022-23. Mr. Subrahmanyam said contrary to the criticism against the Centre, the manufacturing sector is growing at a fast pace and providing jobs. “We have added 22 lakh jobs in 2022-23,” he said. 

The report said the Gross Value Added (GVA) grew by 7.3% in current prices in the year 2022-23 over 2021-22. “Increase in input was 24.4% while output grew by 21.5% in the sector in 2022-23 over 2021-22,” the report said. 

2022-23 witnessed a growth in industrial sector for majority of the important economic parameters like invested capital, input, output, GVA, employment and wages and even surpassed the pre-pandemic level in absolute value terms. When asked about the recent Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) results that cited stagnation in labour force in manufacturing sector, Mr. Subrahmanyam said the PLFS also looks at the agriculture sector, including food processing sectors. “PLFS is across the sectors. Contract labour is stagnant. This survey is not showing micro industries. This survey largely covers small and medium sectors,” he said.

According to the survey, the main drivers of this growth in 2022-23 were industries like manufacture of basic metal, coke & refined petroleum products, food products, chemical and chemical products and motor vehicles. “These industries, taken together, contributed about 58% of the total output of the sector and showed output growth of 24.5% and GVA growth of 2.6% in comparison to 2021-22,” the government said. 

The estimated number of persons engaged in this sector in 2022-23 has exceeded the pre-pandemic level (that is 2018-19) by more than 22.14 lakh. “At the same time, average emoluments also registered an increase over previous year. Also, average emoluments per persons engaged in this sector had gone up by 6.3% in 2022-23 in comparison to 2021-22,” the report said. 

Among the major States, in terms of GVA, Maharashtra ranked first in 2022-23 followed by Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh. “The top five States, taken together contributed more than 54% of the total manufacturing GVA of the country in 2022-23.

The top five States employing highest number of persons in this sector were Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka in ASI 2022-23. Taken together, these States contributed about 55% of total manufacturing employment in the year 2022-23,” the report added.