India’s eight core sectors posted a growth of 3.6 percent in January, according to data released by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry on February 29.
At 3.6 percent, the growth in India’s eight key infrastructure industries – coal, crude oil, steel, cement, electricity, fertilisers, refinery products and natural gas – in the first month of 2024 is the lowest in 15 months.
In December 2023, core sector growth had printed in at 3.8 percent. The commerce ministry, on February 29, revised this figure up to 4.9 percent.
The output of the eight core sectors had grown by 9.7 percent in January 2023.
In April 2023-January 2024, the output of India’s eight core industries was 7.7 percent higher year-on-year as against 8.3 percent in the first 10 months of 2022-23.
The fall in core sector growth in January was due to five of the eight sectors seeing their output either contract or grow at a slower pace compared to December, with the fertiliser production down 0.6 percent after posting a growth of 5.8 percent in December 2023.
The performance of the eight sectors in January is as follows:
>> coal output up 10.2 percent as against 10.7 percent in December
>> crude oil output up 0.7 percent as against a fall of 1.0 percent in December
>> natural gas output up 5.5 percent as against 6.6 percent in December
>> refinery products output down 4.3 percent as against growth of 4.0 percent in December
>> fertiliser output down 0.6 percent as against growth of 5.8 percent in December
>> steel output up 7.0 percent as against 7.6 percent in December
>> cement output up 5.6 percent as against 3.8 percent in December
>> electricity output up 5.2 percent as against 1.2 percent in December
The slower increase in core sector output in January means industrial growth, as per the Index of Industrial Production (IIP), may also edge lower as the eight core industries make up more than 40 percent of the weight of the IIP.
Data on the IIP growth for January will be released on March 12. In December, IIP growth had risen slightly to 3.8 percent from 2.4 percent in November.
