The eight core infrastructure industries expanded by 7.8 per cent in July, against 5.7 per cent in the same period last year, on healthy growth in electricity, steel and cement production.
The core infrastructure industries had expanded by 5.2 per cent in the previous month.
The eight 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.
Electricity, steel and cement output grew by 13 per cent, 15.5 per cent and 10.6 per cent in July respectively, according
to the provisional data released on Tuesday.
In the same month last year, electricity production had grown by 4.2 per cent, while steel and cement sectors had contracted by 2.9 per cent and 0.2 per cent respectively.
Crude oil production grew by 1.4 per cent in the month under review against 15.8 per cent in the comparable period of last year. Petroleum refinery products output too grew by 3.9 per cent against a growth of 13.7 per cent in the same month last year.
However, natural gas and fertiliser output contracted by 8.2 per cent and 1.6 per cent, respectively.
During April-July 2011-12, the growth of core industries slowed down to 5.8 per cent from 6.5 per cent in the same quarter last year.
