The Hindu Business Line : Infrastructure sector growth dips to 3.6% in April

New Delhi, June 18 The growth rate of the six core infrastructure industries witnessed a major slide in April this year compared to the same month last year.

The combined growth registered by the six core sector industries dipped to 3.6 per cent in April as against 5.9 per cent in April 2007.

Steel, cement improve

A more than 10 per cent growth in coal production along with improved performance by the steel and cement sector prevented the infrastructure index from dipping further under pressure from poor growth in electricity generation, crude oil production and petroleum refinery output.

Coal production went up by 10.3 per cent in April (0.6 per cent in the same month last year), cement output gained by 6.9 per cent (5.8 per cent) while crude steel production improved by four per cent (2.7 per cent).

Downtrend

The three industries that created the downward pressure on the index are crude oil (from 1.4 per cent in April 2007 went down to 0.9 per cent in April 2008), refinery output (from 15.1 per cent to 4.3 per cent) and electricity generation (from 8.7 per cent to 1.4 per cent).

In absolute terms, crude oil production in April 2008 was 2.81 million tonnes (2.79 mt in April 2007), petroleum refinery output was 12.13 mt (11.64 mt) and electricity generation was 58,815 GwH (58,030 GwH). Coal production went up to 34.98 mt (31.72 mt), cement output increased to 15.52 mt (14.52 mt) while steel production was 4.13 mt (3.97 mt).

Industrial production

For fiscal 2007-08, the growth in industrial production stood at 5.6 per cent as against 9.2 per cent in fiscal 2006-07.

Only the growth in coal production during 2007-08 was higher compared to the corresponding figure last fiscal. All the five other sectors witnessed a dip. Growth in crude oil production dipped from 5.6 per cent in 2006-07 to 0.4 per cent in 2007-08, petroleum refinery products (from 12.9 per cent to 6.5 per cent), electricity (from 7.3 per cent to 6.3 per cent), cement from (9.1 per cent to 8.1 per cent) and finished steel (from 13.1 per cent to 5.1 per cent). Only production in the coal sector improved marginally during 2007-08 to touch six per cent as against 5.9 per cent in 2006-07.