Even though the growth of six core industries — crude oil, cement, electricity, coal, petroleum refinery products and finished steel — in March this year was less than the 10.5 per cent a year ago, it was encouraging, given the dismal industrial growth.

So far as the whole of 2007-08 is concerned, growth in these six areas declined to 5.6 per cent in fiscal 2007-08 from 9.2 per cent in the previous year.

In March 2008, three of the six core industries, however, performed badly as crude oil production declined by 0.3 per cent, petroleum refinery output remained stagnant and electricity generation grew by just 3.6 per cent in March compared to eight per cent a year ago.

It was mainly finished steel and cement, which pushed up the growth of six infrastructure industries in March. Finished steel production grew by 21.8 per cent from 16.6 per cent, while cement output rose by 9.3 per cent from 5.5 per cent. Coal production growth dipped by 9.3 per cent from 10.6 per cent during the month.

Poor performance
The 9.6 per cent growth in six core industries in March was the highest throughout financial year 2007-08. Before this, these industries grew by 8.9 per cent in August 2007.

The six core industries have a 26.7 per cent weight in the Index of Industrial Production (IIP), which measures industrial growth.

For fiscal 2007-08, all six industries put up a poor performance and registered slowdown in growth. While crude oil production grew by a mere 0.4 per cent last fiscal from 5.6 per cent, growth in petroleum refinery production was a slower 6.5 per cent, compared to a healthy 12.9 per cent in 2006-07.Coal production was up  by 6 per cent from 5.9 per cent during the period.