New Delhi: An uptick in manufacturing pushed up India's factory output to 4.1 percent in April, against 2.1 percent in the month before.

Further, among the six sectoral indices, capital goods expanded by 11.1 percent, as per official data released Friday.

The factory output had grown at a slower pace of 2.1 percent in March from 5 percent in February. The factory output had stood at 3.7 percent in April, 2014.

According to the Central Statistics Office (CSO) which released the data on the Index of Industrial Production (IIP), the healthy growth in the factory output for April was attributed to an uptick in the manufacturing sector.

The manufacturing sector, which has the maximum weightage in the IIP, grew by 5.1 percent in the month under review from 2.2 percent in March.

For the other two major sub-indices of the IIP, the CSO data showed that the index for the mining sector inched by 0.6 percent against 0.9 percent in March, while that for electricity segment was down 0.5 percent in April, against a growth of 2 percent in the month before.

The three sub-indices of the IIP namely manufacturing, mining and electricity, had registered a growth of 3 percent, 1.7 percent and 11.9 percent in April, 2014 respectively.

Friday's data also showed that among the six use-based classifications of the index, the output of capital goods expanded by 11.1 percent. The capital goods segment is a key indicator of economic activity.

While consumer non-durables, intermediate goods, consumer goods and basic goods also came out with healthy performance. These sectors grew by 4.4 percent, 3.3 percent, 3.1 percent and 2.8 percent respectively.

The consumer durables segment expanded by just 1.3 percent in April.

Overall, 16 out of the 22 industry groups in the manufacturing sector have shown positive growth during the month under review.

Segment-wise, growth was witnessed in plastic moulding machinery (266.4 percent), aluminium conductor (92 percent), cashew karnels (52.4 percent), vitamins (48.3 percent), boilers (40.3 percent), air conditioner (34.4 percent), copper products (33.4 percent), tea (33.2 percent), carbon steel (32.5 percent), block board (26.3 percent), three-wheelers (24 percent) and sugar (22.9 percent).

Segment-wise, high negative growth was reported in cigarettes (- 52.8 percent), grinding wheels (- 46.5 percent), computers (- 46.4 percent), telephone instruments including mobile phones and accessories(-43 percent), cement machinery (- 38.9 percent), tractors (- 35.2 percent), aviation turbine fuel (- 29.3 percent) and aerated waters, soft drinks (- 23.5 percent). (IANS)