Infrastructure industries growth dips to 4.2%

New Delhi, Mar 19 (UNI) Growth in six core areas of the infrastructure industries continued to slide and fell to 4.2 per cent in January from 8.3 per cent a year ago, government data released today said.

The growth rate of the core industries declined to 5.5 per cent between April-January 2007-08 from 8.9 per cent during the same period of 2006-07.

Crude oil production registered a negative growth of 0.2 per cent as against 4.7 per cent last year, while growth in petroleum refinery products went down by more than half to 5.3 per cent from 11.2 per cent.

Growth in coal production also declined by half to 4.8 per cent from 9.9 per cent.

Electricity generation witnessed a meagre growth of 3.3 per cent in January as compared with 8.3 per cent in the month a year ago.

Cement production registered a moderate growth of 5.2 per cent as against 7.2 per cent in January 2007.

Production in finished (carbon) steel recorded a growth of 8.5 per cent as compared with 8.5 per cent during the comparable months of 2007 and 2008.

These six core infrastructure industries have a combined weigtage of 26.7 per cent in the index of industrial production.

UNI SAA BJR HT1845