Measuring Energy Transition in Generation in the New Index of Industrial Production Series

Policy makers, corporates, economists, statisticians and industry analysts will be in a position to track industrial production with much more precision and granularity in Fiscal Year 2027 and will also be able to compare the progress as per the older datasets.

Earlier this week, the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) released the new series of the Index of Industrial Production (IIP)—India’s monthly barometer of industrial performance—with Financial Year 2022–23 as the base year, replacing the old series pertaining to 2011–12.

The more nuanced new series is particularly significant for the electricity sector as it makes a structural change in measuring electricity generation. For the first time, generation is compiled as a weighted index of two distinct sources—Renewable (hydro, wind, solar) and Non-renewable (thermal, nuclear)—rather than a single aggregate. Renewables now carry a 2.33% weight against 7.84% for non-renewables, so clean power accounts for roughly a quarter of the electricity-generation weight.

The sector’s scope also widens in the new series as Gas Supply enters as a new sub-category, lifting the combined Electricity & Gas Supply weight to 10.87%, up from 8.0% in the old series.

This disaggregation will help in tracking the energy transition through the production data, and under the new series, the split will allow the index to capture a shift toward cleaner sources over time.

Another key feature of the new series is the expansion of coverage beyond the traditional mining, manufacturing and electricity sectors. The revised IIP includes water supply, sewerage and waste management as a sub-category and broadens the coverage of mining to minor minerals and rare earth minerals. This will help provide a more comprehensive picture of import-dependent minerals.

Publishing separate indices for renewable and non-renewable electricity generation, metallic minerals, non-metallic minerals, gas supply, and water and waste management will offer more granularity for policy making and aid research at a disaggregated level.

According to a press statement by MoSPI, the new series aligns better with global standards of measuring industrial activities, and the revision aligns it with other major macroeconomic indicators like Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and Wholesale Price Index (WPI), which share 2022–23 as the base year.

Base year revision undertaken periodically is typically considered a good practice as the old base-year-driven series become outdated, and new developments in the economy need to be incorporated. The rebased IIP was overdue and will link the index to the current shape of the economy.

The report of the exercise undertaken under the supervision of the Technical Advisory Committee for Base Year Revision of the All India Index of Industrial Production (TAC-IIP) was released in May 2026.

Interestingly, the new series does more than reset the base: it rebuilds the item basket to 1,042 products across 463 item groups, up from 839 items across 407 item groups, draws fresh weights from 2022–23 National Accounts Gross Value Added (GVA) and Annual Survey of Industries (ASI) data, and adopts the NIC-2025 classification.

The result, therefore, is a more representative gauge of industrial activity. The IIP growth rate in April 2026 was 4.9% compared with April 2025.