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The growth of eight key infrastructure sectors slowed to a 15-month low of 3.6% in January, driven by a contraction in fertiliser and refinery production along with base effects from 2023 when the core sectors had grown 9.7% in the same month.
The Commerce and Industry Ministry, which released the data on February 29, also upgraded the growth rate of eight core sectors — coal, crude oil, natural gas, refinery products, fertiliser, steel, cement and electricity — for December 2023 to 4.9% from the 14-month low of 3.8% estimated earlier.
The previous low level of growth rate was recorded at 0.9% in October 2022.
Cumulatively also, the growth rate in the output of these sectors slowed down to 7.7% as against 8.3% in April-January 2022-23.
The Index of Core Industries (ICI) constitutes a little over 40% of the Index of Industrial Production (IIP).
Sequentially, output rose for the second straight month and were 2.2% higher than December 2023. In absolute terms, output levels were at a ten-month high.
While refinery products, with a 28% weightage in the ICI, dropped 4.3% in January, marking their first contraction in nine months, electricity generation with a 20% weightage, recovered from a mere 1.2% uptick in December to rise 5.2% in January.
Coal output growth slowed slightly to 10.2%, but still clocked the seventh straight month of double-digit growth. Crude oil production broke a two-month streak of contractions to register a minor 0.7% growth in January.
(with inputs from PTI)
