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Journalism of Courage
Backed by an impressive recovery of cement and coal production in the country,key infrastructure sectors grew by 7.8 per cent for the month of July as against 5.7 per cent during the same period a year ago.
As per the provisional data released by the government today,cement production saw an impressive growth of 10.6 per cent as against a dismal 0.7 per cent a month ago while coal production grew by 2.4 per cent as against a contraction of -3.3 in June. Steel production expanded by 15.5 per cent during the month as against 13.2 per cent in June while electricity generation grew by 13 per cent as compared to 7.9 per cent.
During the corresponding period last year,cement production had contracted by 0.2 per cent and steel by 2.9 per cent while electricity production had grown by 4.2 per cent.
However,crude oil production performed poorly at a mere 1.4 per cent during the month as against 7.7 per cent a month ago.
The eight core infrastructure sector crude oil,petroleum refinery products,natural gas,fertilisers,coal,electricity,cement and finished steel have a weight of 37.90 per cent in the Index of Industrial Production (IIP). Experts say that though the core sector performance will provide impetus to IIP but only slightly. Cement has been a positive surprise. Construction will have implications for both for steel and cement sector but I see them heading down in the months to come. I think this will give a slight push to IIP. Interest rates etc are indication that IIP growth will slow down, D K Joshi,Crisil chief economist said.
The core infrastructure industries had expanded by 5.2 per cent in June 2011.
