India’s eight core sectors posted a 6.7 percent growth in February against 4.1% last month. It was 7.4 percent in February 2023.
Production rebounded for refinery products (2.6% vs -4.3%), and rose faster for electricity (6.3% vs 5.7%), coal (11.6% vs 10.2%), crude oil (7.9% vs 0.7%), natural gas (11.3% vs 5.5%), cement (10.2% vs 5.7%). On the other hand, the output for steel rose slightly less (8.4% vs 8.7%) and production of fertilizers fell much more (-9.5% vs -0.6%). Considering the April to February period, infrastructure output grew 7.7%, below 8.2% in the same period of the previous fiscal year.
The index of Eight Core Industries (ICI) measures the combined and individual performance of production of eight core industries namely cement, coal, crude oil, electricity, fertilizers, natural gas, refinery products and steel. These industries comprise 40.27 percent of the weight of items included in the Index of Industrial Production (IIP).
