A survey carried out by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry has specified that it is the select service sector segments, which have recorded a 10-20 per cent growth during April to November this year, while the country’s manufacturing sector had to experience a low ride.

During the specified period, 12 service sector segments out of 31 have shown a ‘high’ to ‘excellent’ growth rate ranging between 10 per cent to over 20 per cent. It should be noted here though that it is a huge drop from the previous year, 2007-08, when 26 segments of the services sector recorded this order of growth.

“The slowdown is expected to make a further dent in the growth of some segments of the services sector, given its overall contribution of 63 per cent to the GDP. At the same time, the services sector growth is expected to help maintain a healthy GDP growth this fiscal,” said the survey.

The survey conducted by the FICCI Services Sector showed that there was a growth in wireless subscribers by 50 per cent in April-November 2008 compared with the corresponding period of the previous year. Furthermore, there was a growth by 26 percent in the Internet subscribers as compared to 20 per cent in the corresponding period in the previous year, and broadband subscribers grew by 87.7 per cent over 23.6 per cent last year.

“High growth areas this April-November are railway revenue earning passenger traffic with 12.2 per cent , revenue earning railway freight traffic with 15.7 per cent, franchising with 10 per cent, exchange earnings from foreign tourists with 16.5 per cent, housing finance with 12 per cent, entertainment and media Industry with 10 per cent,” informed the survey.