Contrary to all the odds of expansion, India’s annual industrial output growth, measured by index of industrial production (IIP) threw up a nasty surprise as it slipped to 9-month low as it de-grew substantially by 1.9% in February as compared to marginal expansion of 0.1% in January. Street widely was expecting industrial output to improve to 0.34% on the back of good eight core industries growth, which grew at five-month high. Meanwhile, the cumulative growth for the period April-February 2013-14 over the corresponding period of the previous year stands at (-) 0.1%. However, in some sense of relief, January IIP data was revised upwards to 0.8% v/s 0.1% earlier.