An Analysis of Productivity Trends in Indian Manufacturing Sector

Manufacturing sector in India has exhibited a rather stagnant growth over the years and has failed to create business and job opportunities, provide productive employment and drive exports. Against this backdrop, the present paper seeks to analyse the productivity performance of the sector during the last one-and-ahalf decade and identify the firm level characteristics impacting the productivity. Using industry level data from annual survey of industries and firm level data from CMIE prowess database, it is found that the manufacturing sector did experience growth in labour productivity and total factor productivity in some of the years during the period of study. However, the overall productivity growth has not been impressive in the sense that it lacked consistency and inclusivity. Examination of firm level characteristics reveals that features like size, R&D stock and age of firm have been the major drivers of growth. Hence, sectors characterised by large and technologically superior firms managed productivity growth while sectors with dominant share of smaller firms with lower R&D and technological capability have found this benefit elusive.