The growth rate of eight infrastructure sectors – coal, crude oil, natural gas, refinery products, fertilisers, steel, cement and electricity – stood at 7.6 per cent in FY23, lower than the 10.4 per cent recorded in 2021-22.
A growth of 12.2 per cent has been registered in coal production, 9.7 per cent in fertilizers, 8.8 per cent in steel, 2.8 per cent in natural gas and 1.5 per cent in refinery products.
Output of eight infrastructure sectors registered a growth of 3.6 per cent in March 2023, the slowest in five months, showed government data released on Friday. The output of core sectors grew by 7.2 per cent in February 2023 and 4.8 per cent in the year-ago month. The previous low was 0.7 per cent in October 2022.
Crude oil production declined by 2.8 per cent, electricity by 1.8 per cent and cement by 0.8 per cent in March this year.
At the same time, an increase of 12.2 percent was recorded in coal production, 9.7 percent in fertilizers, 8.8 percent in steel, 2.8 percent in natural gas and 1.5 percent in refinery products.
The growth rate of eight infrastructure sectors – coal, crude oil, natural gas, refinery products, fertilisers, steel, cement and electricity – stood at 7.6 per cent in FY23, lower than the 10.4 per cent recorded in 2021-22.
The core sector or major infrastructure industries have a weight of 40.27 per cent in the overall index of industrial production (IIP).
Aditi Nayar, Chief Economist and Head (Research & Outreach) at ICRA, said, “YoY core sector growth slowed to a five-month low of 3.6% in March 2023 from 7.2% in February 2023, which was quite broad-based , with only coal and crude oil showing a gradual improvement.”
He said unseasonal rains are likely to dent the output of some sectors such as power and cement, which along with crude showed a year-on-year contraction in March 2023. Whereas, coal, fertilizers and steel have shown a healthy expansion of over 8 per cent in March 2023, which is encouraging.
“Influenced by a high base and heavy rainfall, the YoY performance of most of the available high-frequency indicators weakened in March 2023, relative to February 2023, similar to the core sector trend. Accordingly, ICRA expects 3-4 per cent growth in IIP in March 2023,” said Nair.
(With inputs from PTI)
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