Growth in India's six infrastructure industries slowed to 1.4 per cent in January as production in the core sectors barring cement showed poor performance.
The six core infrastructure industries -- crude oil, petroleum refinery products, coal, electricity, cement and finished carbon steel-- had registered a growth rate of 3.6 per cent in January 2008.
During the April-January period of this fiscal, the industries posted a growth rate of 3.2 per cent against 5.7 per cent in the corresponding period previous year.
Displaying poor performance, crude oil production declined further to 8.1 per cent in January after a dip of 0.2 per cent in the corresponding month last year. Petroleum refinery production too declined by 2.6 per cent against a growth rate of 5.4 per cent in the year-ago period.
Coal output and electricity generation registered growth rates of 6.3 per cent and 1.4 per cent in January against 7.9 per cent and 3.7 per cent, respectively, in the same month previous year.
Finished steel production registered a growth of 1.2 per cent in January against 2 per cent last year, while cement production grew by 8.3 per cent compared to 5.6 per cent in January 2008.
