August core sector output slows to 2.1%

Might impact industrial performance

 A decline in production of natural gas, fertilizer and cement pulled down India’s infrastructure sector output to 2.1 per cent in August as compared to 3.8 per cent a year ago, with analysts apprehensive about its impact being felt on industrial performance as a whole.

The infrastructure sector -- also known as the core sector -- accounts for close to 38 per cent of the country’s industrial production and any slowdown here is indicative of sluggishness in the industrial index, data for which is expected on October 12.
The eight core sectors comprise coal, crude oil, oil refinery, natural gas, steel, cement, electricity and fertilisers.

While natural gas and crude oil production contracted 13.5 per cent and 0.6 per cent in August, fertiliser and cement shrank 2.1 per cent and 2.4 per cent. Steel and electricity production slowed to 1.8 per cent and 1.7 per cent. However coal and petroleum refinery output grew by 11 per cent and 8.4 per cent in August. The core sector grew 2.8 per cent in the April-August period from 5.5 per cent a year earlier.

India's infrastructure sector output had grown 1.8 per cent in July from a year earlier, slower than an upwardly revised annual growth of 3.9 per cent in the previous month.