Core sector growth stands at 2.9% in March

02 May 2013 Evaluate

The growth in the eight core industries' slowed marginally down to 2.9% in March as against 3% in the same month last year reflecting a slowdown in the economy. For the entire fiscal April- March 2013, the core industries growth slipped to a decade low of 2.6 % compared to 5% in 2011-12 mainly on account of declining output of crude oil and natural gas.

The eight industries - crude oil, petroleum refinery products, natural gas, fertilisers, coal, electricity, cement and finished steel - have a weightage of 37.9% in the overall Index of Industrial Production (IIP).

The marginal decline in growth in March was on account of negative growth witnessed in the production of natural gas and low growth recorded in the production of coal and crude oil. The production of natural gas contracted by 17.7 % in March, while, coal and crude oil output growth dropped to 0.3 % and 0.2 % from 7.3 % and (-) 2.9 % in March 2012. Moreover, cement production growth slowed to 6.6 % in the reported period, as against 7.1 % in March 2012.

On the other hand, petroleum refinery, fertiliser and steel production grew by 5.6 %, 3.6 % and 6.6 % in March 2013, as against 1.6 %, 1.5 % and 6.2 %, respectively, in the year-ago period. Electricity generation grew marginally to 3% growth in March 2013 compared to its 2.8 per cent growth in the same month of previous year.

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