The Hindu Business Line : Infrastructure sector sees 9% growth in August

Status chart
Growth declined for the six during April-Aug period.
For August, coal and electricity contribute to improvement.
Crude sees decline, steel output marginally down.

Our Bureau

New Delhi, Oct. 5 The buoyant performance by the cement, coal and electricity sectors has pushed up the growth of the six core infrastructure industries to 9 per cent in August as against 6.6 per cent in the same month last year.

Cement sector was the main driver recording a growth of 16.2 per cent in August from 2.9 per cent in the same month a year ago.

Coal and electricity, with 8.7 per cent growth each, were the other sectors which contributed to the improvement, which have a weightage of 26.68 per cent in the overall Index for Industrial Production. While coal production improved from 0.6 per cent, electricity moved up from 4.1 per cent in August 2006.

There was, however, a decline in growth of crude petroleum to 6.4 per cent from 12 per cent and petroleum refinery products to 8.2 per cent from 12.1 per cent. The steel output was marginally down by a percentage point to 8.5 per cent.

Though the August numbers showed an improvement over the last year, there was a decline in the growth of the six sectors during the April-August period of the current financial year.

The growth of the six sectors declined to 6.6 per cent from 8.3 per cent in the corresponding period last year. The decline in the growth was because of all the sectors except electricity.

Electricity generation registered a growth of 8.2 per cent (5.8 per cent). Crude oil production registered a growth of just one per cent (3.1 per cent). Petroleum refinery grew by 10.4 per cent (12.1 per cent).

Coal production also saw a decline in growth to 1.3 per cent (6.6 per cent). Cement production grew by 8.9 per cent (9.5 per cent) and steel output rose at a slower pace of 5.9 per cent (12.5 per cent).