New Delhi, June 2 -- India's new Index of Industrial Production (IIP) series will track items such as Monazite and credit and debit cards with magnetic strips, drop products such as kerosene and sewing machines, and introduce an entirely new sub-sector for water supply, sewerage and waste management. The revised series also gives greater weight to intermediate goods than primary goods. Reflecting these quantitative and qualitative changes, the new IIP series shows stronger industrial growth over the past three years than the previous series, in line with manufacturing growth trends seen in the revised GDP series released on February 27. The National Statistics Office (NSO) released the new IIP series, India's official high-frequency gauge of industrial activity, on Monday. The latest revision is the tenth such update and shifts the base year to 2022-23 from 2011-12. As for the latest data point, IIP grew 4.9% in April 2026, up from 3.2% in March, suggesting limited disruption to industrial activity from the ongoing conflict in West Asia. The back series released along with the new index shows that industrial growth rate was faster in 2023-24, 2024-25 and 2025-26 than previously estimated. The revised series shows IIP growth of 6.7%, 6.4%, and 4.3% in those years compared with 5.9%, 4.1%, and 4.1%, respectively, under the old series. To be sure, a higher growth rate does not mean just statistical jugglery in the IIP numbers. The new series has seen significant qualitative changes at both macro and granular level. IIP now has an entire new sub-sector - "water supply and sewerage" - and expands the number items tracked to 463 from 407 in the 2011-12. A total of 120 new items such as Monazite (a critical mineral), CCTV cameras, and credit/debit cards with magnetic stripe have been added, while 64 items (such as kerosene, fluorescent tubes and CFLs, sewing machines) have been removed. As a result, only 343 item groups are common to both series. The items were selected for the new series depending on their share in the 2021-22 and 2022-23 rounds of the Annual Survey of Industries (ASI). The previous series, which gave IIP data up to March 2026, used the 2010-11 and 2011-2 rounds of the ASI. New sectors and new items have also led to a redistribution of weights....