India’s core industrial sector grew 11.6 percent in August, according to the Index of Eight Core Industries (ICI) released by the Ministry of commerce & industry on Thursday. A drastic improvement has been shown in this year, as in the previous year the data showed that the industrial sector had contracted by 6.9 per cent.
Coal, crude oil, natural gas, refinery products, fertilizers, steel, cement and electricity comes under the country’s eight core industries. These subfields account for 40.27 percent of the total weight of items in the Industrial Production Index (IIP). For the third month in a row, the key sectors have increased in value.
Out of the above-mentioned sectors– coal production rose by 20.6 per cent for August corresponding to last year, while natural gas production also rose by 20.6 in August this year. An improvement can be seen in the petroleum refinery production which climbed 9.1 per cent and electricity generation ballooned by 15.3 per cent year-on-year, the government data showed.
Steel and cement production also marked a stark improvement as per the data for this year. Whereas the output of crude oil and fertiliser industries declined over the year by 2.3 per cent and 3.1 per cent respectively.
To date, the growth rate of the eight core industries in the months of April-August for the financial year 2021-22 stood at 19.3 percent corresponding to a contraction of 17.3 per cent observed in the same period last year.