New Delhi: The growth of India’s eight infrastructure sectors, known as core sectors, moderated to 6 per cent in the month of February this year in comparison with the growth recorded during the same month last year as except for fertilizers and cement, the growth rate of six other sectors decelerated. These 8 sectors, coal, crude oil, natural gas, refinery products, steel, cement, electricity generation and fertilizers account for 40 per cent weight in the country’s overall Industrial Production Index (IIP).
These two sectors – fertilizers and cement – where the growth rate has picked up in February this year on year-on-year basis account only for 8 per cent weight within the 8 core infrastructure sectors. In other words, in six other core infrastructure sectors having 92 percent weight in the core industries, the growth rate has decelerated on a year-on-year basis.
These sectors are coal which has over 10 per cent weight in the core industries recorded 8.5% y-o-y growth in February which is four-month low). Similarly, natural gas production, which has 6.88 percent weight in the core industries, recorded a modest growth of just 3.2% on a y-o-y basis in February. Petroleum refinery products which have the highest 28.4 percent weight in core industries recorded a modest 3.3% y-o-y growth in the last month which is a three-month low).
Steel production which has 17.92 percent weight in core industries recorded 6.9% y-o-y growth in February while electricity generation which has nearly one-fifth weight in core industries recorded a modest growth of 7.6% in February this year which is a four month low.
