E-way bills for Feb show moderation
The number of electronic permits issued to transport goods within and across states moderated in February from the previous month but remained above the 80 million mark seen since November.
At 81.8 million, e-way bill generation indicates a mid-quarter dip, but year-end inventory clearance by companies could boost goods shipment in March. E-way bill data, a high-frequency indicator of consumption, shows that the number of permits raised often goes up in the last month of every quarter. E-way bills in February point to transportation activity in the month for which taxes are collected in March.
Quoting its February manufacturing purchase manager’s index figure, S&P Global had said earlier this month that India’s manufacturing industry sustained robust output growth halfway through the final fiscal quarter, but it was driven mainly by the domestic market. It pointed out a notable slowdown in the rate of international sales expansion of the 400 companies it surveyed. Although companies continued to scale up input purchases, capacity utilization was not under pressure, S&P said on 1 March while reporting the 20th consecutive month of production growth, with manufacturing PMI at 55.3 in February.
