Chennai: Senior Congress leader and former Union Minister P Chidambaram has slammed the Union government for not releasing the complete data of Index of Industrial Production for April 2020.
The former Union Finance Minister wondered if it would lock them up in a safe vault to be opened after 20 years.
“Economy is in safe hands, says the FM. It is in such ‘safe’ hands that the government will not release the IIP numbers for April 2020! Will the government lock up the IIP numbers in a safe vault to be opened only after 20 years,” he tweeted.
The government on Friday held back the release of complete data of index of industrial production for April, saying it is not appropriate to compare the IIP data with earlier months due to Covid-19 lockdown.
According to an official statement, the IIP — which measures factory output in the country — stood at 56.3 points in April, 2020 compared to 126 in the same month a year ago.
“In view of the preventive measures and announcement of nationwide lockdown by the government to contain spread of COVID-19 pandemic, majority of the industrial sector establishments were not operating from the end of March, 2020 onwards. This has had an impact on the items being produced by the establishments during the month of April, 2020, where a number of responding units have reported NIL production,” Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation said.