Core industries slip to 4-month low of 0.1% in June

Growth in eight infrastructure industries plunged to 0.1 percent in June mainly due to contraction in crude oil, natural gas, coal and electricity output.

New Delhi: Showing no sign of recovery, growth rate of eight core infrastructure industries slumped to a four-month low of 0.1 percent in June, mainly due to declining output of crude oil, coal, power and natural gas.

The eight core industries had expanded at a rate of 7.9 percent in the same period last year.

The contraction in production of coal, crude oil, natural gas and electricity in the month was 3 percent, 0.6 percent, 16.7 percent and 1.2 percent, respectively, according to the government data.

The eight infrastructure industries have a weight of about 38 percent in the overall industrial production.

Experts said figures clearly reflect slowdown in policy decisions and infrastructural bottlenecks.

"The demand in the economy has collapsed and what the RBI has done in its monetary policy will further push the growth of these sectors down. The overall economic growth would be below 5 percent this fiscal," senior economist Rajiv Kumar said.

Petroleum refinery production showed an expansion of 2.3 percent. Steel production grew by 3.4 percent, while cement output was up by 2.3 percent in the review period.

During April-June period, the growth in eight infrastructure industries slowed to 1.6 percent from 6.9 percent in the same period last year.

The growth was 3.2 percent in 2012-13 as against 5 percent in the previous financial year.

In February, the growth of eight core sectors was (-) 2.4 percent.

PTI