The Hindu Business Line : Core sector growth marginal in April

New Delhi June 11 The story from the infrastructure sector for the first month of the current fiscal is that there has been a slowdown in growth of production of coal, cement and finished steel.

But the petroleum and electricity sectors' performance helped the overall growth of the six infrastructure sectors to be at 7.4 per cent in April 2007 against 7.3 per cent in the same month last year.

Coal production in April grew by a meagre 0.5 per cent against the 3.4 per cent growth registered in April 2006. The growth in cement production also dipped to 5.1 per cent in April 2007 from 12.2 per cent in the same month last year. Finished steel production grew at a rate of 8.4 per cent in April 2007 against 10.1 per cent.

The decline was, however, neutralised by the growth registered by sectors such as petroleum refinery and electricity. While petroleum refinery production grew 15.1 per cent in April 2007 from 13.1 per cent, electricity generation grew 8.7 per cent against 5.9 per cent.

Crude production grew 1.4 per cent during the month, recovering from the negative 1.8 per cent growth it registered in April 2006.

For the fiscal ended March 31, 2007, the six core industries registered an 8.6 per cent growth against 6.2 per cent during the corresponding period previous year.

During 2006-07, crude petroleum production registered a growth of 5.5 per cent, recovering from the negative 5.2 per cent growth the sector saw in 2005-06. Production of petroleum refinery grew 12.3 per cent during 2006-07 against 2.1 per cent. Electricity generation too grew by 7.3 per cent, up from 5.1 per cent.

There was, however, a slight slowdown in the increase in coal production. The production slowed down to 6 per cent in the year against 6.6 per cent.

Production of cement and finished steel also saw a decline, with cement sector growing by 9.1 per cent against 12.4 per cent. Finished steel production grew 10.9 per cent against 11.2 per cent.