Eight core sector industries grow by 0.1% in Oct

New Delhi: Growth of eight infrastructure industries slowed down to 0.1 percent in October this year, from 7.2 percent expansion witnessed in the same month last year.

The eight industries - crude oil, petroleum refinery products, natural gas, fertilisers, coal, electricity, cement and finished steel - have a weight of 37.90 percent in the overall Index of Industrial Production (IIP).

Barring electricity, cement and steel, all the remaining segments registered negative growth in October 2011.

[caption id=“attachment_144922” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Barring electricity, cement and steel, all the remaining segments registered negative growth in October 2011. Reuters”] [/caption]

Electricity and steel output grew by 4.9 percent and 3.8 percent in October against 8.5 percent and 13.4 percent respectively in the same month last year, according to the provisional data released today.

No growth was recorded in cement production in October, while the same was 18.5 percent in the year-ago month.

Coal and crude oil production contracted by 9 percent and 0.9 percent respectively in the month under the review against 0.7 percent and 13.7 percent expansion in the comparable period last year.

Natural gas and petroleum refinery products coal output contracted by 7.4 percent and 2.8 percent in October 2011 respectively.

In the same month last year, the sectors had witnessed a growth of 6.5 percent and (-) 4.8 percent.

Fertiliser output declined by 2.1 percent in October. It was (-) 0.2 percent in the same period last year.

During April-October 2011-12, the growth of core industries slowed down to 4.3 percent from 5.9 percent in the same quarter last year.

PTI