With electricity and steel showing healthy production growth,the eight core infrastructure industries expanded by 5.2 per cent in June as against 4.4 per cent in the same period last year. The industries - crude oil,petroleum refinery products,natural gas,fertilisers,coal,electricity,cement and finished steel - have a weight of 37.90 per cent in the overall index of industrial production. With addition of two sectors - fertilisers and natural gas - the number of key infrastructure sectors,picked up separately for measuring performance has now gone to eight. Electricity and steel grew by 8.2 per cent and 12.5 per cent in June from 3.8 per cent and 4.3 per cent in the same month in 2010,according to the provisional data released on Friday. Crude oil production grew by 7.7 per cent in the month under review from 6.8 per cent in the comparable period of last year. Petroleum refinery products too grew by 4.7 per cent from 2.9 per cent. However,natural gas,cement,coal and fertiliser showed a negative growth of 11.7 per cent,0.8 per cent,3.3 per cent and 2.4 per cent,respectively. During April-June 2011-12,the growth of core industries slowed down to 5.0 per cent from 6.8 per cent in the same quarter previous year. The growth of eight core infrastructure industries slowed down to 5.3 per cent in May against 7.4 per cent a year ago.
