Core sectors improve in Feb as coal, cement march ahead

New Delhi, Mar 29 (UNI) Led by a smart performance by electricity, coal, cement and petroleum refinery products, the six core infrastructure industries significantly improved their growth to 5.6 per cent in February 2006 from a mere 0.8 per cent in the same month last year.

However, due to the lag in the previous months, the April-February 2005-06 growth of these key industries was 4.5 per cent against 5.8 per cent in the comparable period in the previous year.

While the crude petroleum production did show some improvement in February this year, it remained in the negative territory with minus two per cent growth. The consolation is that the degrowth was reduced to two per cent from 4.9 per cent in the same month last year.

However, for finished (carbon) steel, the production slipped into a negative zone of 1.1 per cent from six per cent positive in February last year. On a cumulative basis, the April-February 2005-06 performance showed a growth of 5.3 per cent compared to 7.5 per cent in the same period of last year.

UNI PC SD HT1750