Slow growth in petroleum products production, coal and electricity generation dragged down the growth of six key infrastructure industries to 3 per cent during October as opposed to a healthy growth of 6.7 per cent registered in the same month last year.
Refined petroleum products remained almost flat while coal showed a negative 1 per cent growth in October. Growth in electricity generation was down to 1.6 per cent as compared to 7.1 per cent in October 2002, the latest data released by the commerce and industry ministry showed.
Cement and finished steel also ended with lower growth rates of 6.0 and 6.8 per cent, respectively, as against 6.7 and 8.6 per cent growth in the previous year.
Crude oil production was the only silver lining in the six-segment infrastructure index, recording a growth rate of 2.7 per cent as against just 0.4 per cent growth a year ago.
The infrastructure index is on a roller-coaster ride this fiscal. Beginning with a modest growth rate of 3.9 per cent in April, it climbed to 4 per cent in May and 4.7 per cent in June, only to fall to 2.6 per cent the following month.
The index recovered to 3.8 per cent in August and then pushed up to 5.9 per cent before again plummeting to 3.0 per cent in October.
The six infrastructure industries posted a growth rate of 3.9 per cent in the first seven months of current fiscal as compared to a growth rate of 6.5 per cent in the same period the previous year. The culprit here were slow growth in all the six industries -- coal, cement, electricity, steel, petroleum product and crude oil.
During April-October, crude oil production declined 0.9 per cent to 19.182 million tonnes as compared to 4.5 per cent growth last year, while production of petroleum products grew 5.2 per cent to 64.166 million tonnes as compared to 6.5 per cent growth a year ago.
Coal production grew 3.0 per cent to 184.7 million tonnes (5.5 per cent last year). Cement production at 69.54 million tonnes was 5.3 per cent higher. The growth in cement production last year was 9.3 per cent.
Finished steel growth rate declined from 10.8 per cent in April-October 2002-03 to 7.0 per cent on production of 20.81 million tonnes finished steel.
© 2026