Core sector growth slows down to 3.5% in August

Growth in eight core infrastructure industries slowed down to 3.5 per cent in August as against 7.5 per cent registered in July this year.

Growth in eight core infrastructure industries slowed down to 3.5 per cent in August as against 7.5 per cent registered in July this year. According to experts,this corroborates the slowing trend in economic growth and the government needs to end the policy paralysis for sectors like coal to grow.

The core sector crude oil,petroleum refinery products,natural gas,fertilisers,coal,electricity,cement and finished steel which has a weight of 37.90 per cent in the overall Index of Industrial Production (IIP),stood at 4.4 per cent during the same period last year. While the production in coal saw a contraction of 15.3 per cent during August as against a growth of 2.4 per cent witnessed during the last month,steel production grew by only 7.7 per cent as against 13.8 per cent growth during July. Production of natural gas also contracted by 5.3 per cent during the month as against 8.2 per cent in July.

Fertilisers output increased by 4.3 per cent as against a contraction of 1.6 per cent witnessed last month but electricity generation grew by only 8.9 per cent as against a growth of 13 per cent in July. The output of refinery products at 3.9 per cent was stable.

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Experts said that the data was on expected lines and indicates a clear slowdown in the economy.

It is reflecting general weakening of the economy. The CSO data on GDP shows clearly that construction story is not doing well,thereby also impacting the steel and cement sector. Mining sector has also done badly partly reflecting the Supreme Courts decision in Karnataka and partly because the mining activity has slowed down, DK Joshi,Crisil chief economist,said. He said the impact of high interest rate regime is witnessed only in sectors like cement and steel and slowdown in coal mainly reflective of a policy paralysis.

During April-August 2011-12,the growth of core industries slowed down to 5.3 per cent from 6.1 per cent in the same quarter last year.

Nizamuddin went to the US in December 2015 for a Master’s course in Computer Science, which he completed from Florida Institute of Technology in 2017. He completed his B.Tech in ECE from Jayaprakash Narayan College of Engineering, Mahbubnagar.

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