Industrial growth slipped to a 13-month low of 7.1 per cent in June as manufacturing output dropped, but economists did not see this turning into a trend.

Also, this is for the first time in nine months that industrial expansion, as measured by the Index of Industrial Production (IIP), was in single digit, as two other segments -- mining and electricity generation -- too posted lower numbers than a year ago.

Experts opined that RBI will not relax its hawkish monetary stance, simply because industrial numbers are bad for a month. Also, food inflation again rose to double digits -- 11.4 per cent during the week ended July 31 -- which may not allow RBI to take a pause from hiking key policy rates in its monetary review next month.

The Reserve Bank has raised key rates thrice this year to put the lid on inflation. Wholesale prices based inflation was 10.55 per cent in June and the government expects this to drop to 5-6 per cent by December helped by good rains that would boost food production.

In fact, the plan panel hoped that the June figures for industrial growth will not be a trend for remaining months of this fiscal.

"I will not conclude from the June figure that this is going to be trend for rest of the year. A lot of individual components seems to be showing reasonably good growth," Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia told reporters here.

Experts attributed the sluggish pace of growth to high base effect. The expansion in factory output was quite high at 8.3 per cent a year ago and it makes even a large hike now seem modest.

"One has to take into account that the base effect of low growth in industrial production last year is now dying out and so we will see a relatively subdued IIP figure for two-three months. Maybe, from October-November, the figures will again pick up," Axis Bank Chief Economist Saugata Bhattacharya said.

Crisil chief economist D K Joshi also said industrial growth will pick up in July.

"We believe that the economy will clock an industrial growth of 9 per cent for the year. The June figures are down but we believe for July it will go up. However, volatility will remain and we will continue to see this kind of ups and downs," he said.

Economists are, however, divided whether the economy will register 8.5 per cent growth for this fiscal, as expected by the government.

Joshi said, "As for GDP growth, our forecast is that it will be 8 per cent this fiscal."

However, Ahluwalia said industrial growth need not be in double digits for the whole year for the economy to grow by 8.5 per cent, even though he said he would like industrial expansion to be at least 10 per cent.