Eight core sector industries’ growth has slowed down to 2.9 percent in March 2013 from 3 percent in the same month last year due to drop in production of coal and crude oil.
“The marginal decline in growth in March was on account of negative growth witnessed in the production of natural gas and low growth recorded in the production of coal and crude oil,” an official release said Tuesday.
During 2012-13, expansion of the eight industries — crude oil, natural gas, cement, coal, electricity, steel, petroleum refinery products and fertilisers — was down at 2.6 percent against 5 percent in 2011-12.
The eight industries have a weightage of 37.9 percent in the overall Index of Industrial Production (IIP).
Production of natural gas contracted by 17.7 percent in the month under review. Coal and crude oil output growth dropped to 0.3 percent and 0.2 percent respectively, against 7.3 percent and (-) 2.9 percent respectively in March 2012.
Cement production growth slowed to 6.6 percent in the reported period against 7.1 percent in March 2012.
However, petroleum refinery and fertiliser production grew by 5.6 percent and 3.6 percent in March 2013 against 1.6 percent and 1.5 percent, respectively, in the year-ago period.
Steel output increased by 6.6 percent from 6.2 percent in March 2012. Electricity generation grew by 3 percent from 2.8 percent.
The growth of eight core sector industries had contracted by 2.5 percent in February, the first time in 2012-13.
PTI