Growth rate of eight infrastructure sector slips to 2.5%

The growth of eight core sectors declined to 2.5% in April mainly due to lower coal, crude oil and cement productions.

The growth rate of eight infrastructure sectors -- coal, crude oil, natural gas, refinery products, fertilisers, steel, cement and electricity -- was 8.7% in April last year. As per the government data released on Wednesday, coal, crude oil and cement production recorded negative growth of 3.8%, 0.6% and 3.7%, respectively.

Slow growth in key sectors would also have implications on the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) number as these segments account for about 41 rpt 41% to the total factory output.

Growth in refinery products and electricity output slowed down by 0.2% and 4.7% in April as against 19.1% and 14.5%, respectively in the same period last year. However, natural gas, fertiliser and steel reported positive growth at 2%, 6.2% and 9.3%, respectively.

The commerce ministry in a statement said the base year of the index of eight core industries has been revised from 2004-05 to 2011-12. "The shift is in line with the new base year of IIP," it said adding the number of industries remain the same as in the 2004-05 series.

"The revised basket of eight core industries is aligned to the new series of IIP (2011-12) as far as possible. The revised eight core industries have a combined weight of 40.27% in the IIP," it added.