The Reserve Bank of India's tight money policy by way of high interest rates to contain inflation coupled with the chilly winds blowing across the globe appear to have led to a slowdown in the economy with the country's industrial growth shrinking to less than half at 5.3 per cent in January from a robust 11.6 per cent in the same month last year. Even as the economy, as per the advance estimates of the Central Statistical Organisation (CSO), is projected to grow by 8.7 per cent during 2007-08, its data on industrial growth as measured by the index of industrial production (IIP), which was released here on Wednesday, portend a slowdown owing to a slump in performance by all sectors of industry such as manufacturing, which witnessed a negative growth in the consumer durable segment, as also electricity and mining. With this, the RBI's annual monetary policy exercise may well turn out to be a tightrope walk. For, while the slump in industrial growth would call for a cut in interest rates, reining in inflation would still remain a major concern for the central bank. As a consequence of the sharp slide in industrial growth in January, the cumulative growth during the ten-month period (April-January) this fiscal also slipped to a low of 8.7 per cent from 11.2 per cent in the like period a year ago. The growth in the manufacturing sector, which accounts for nearly 80 per cent weightage in the IIP, witnessed a major slump to 5.9 per cent in January from 12.3 per cent in the same month last year. For the April-January period, manufacturing growth fell to 9.2 per cent from 12.1 per cent in the same period of 2006-07. Alongside, the growth in electricity generation slipped to 3.3 per cent in January from 8.3 per cent in the same month of 2007 while mining output growth slumped to 1.8 per cent from 7.7 per cent. The downtrend was visible during April-January this fiscal also, with electricity generation growth slowing down to 6.3 per cent from 7.6 per cent and mining output declining to 4.6 the per cent from 4.8 per cent. The slowdown becomes more evident when analysed in terms of use-based classification, as the consumer durables segment posted a negative growth of 3.1 per cent in January as compared to the 5.3 per cent growth achieved in January last year. Worse still, consumer durables output growth during April-January period plummeted to 1.7 per cent from 10.6 per cent in the like period last fiscal. The CSO data showed that while capital, intermediate and basic goods all suffered a slump in January, the capital goods segment witnessed the sharpest slide in growth to 2.1 per cent from 16.3 per cent. The consumer non-durables segment, however, fared better with its growth rising to 10.1 per cent as compared to 9.1 per cent.