Marginal fall in infrastructure growth, India

There has been a marginal decline in infrastructure sector growth in November this year as compared to the same month last year. The overall growth rate came down by one per cent to reach the level of 5 per cent in November, mainly due to the slowdown in growth of petroleum refining, electricity generation and production of finished steel (reports The Hindu newspaper).

However, during April-November, the growth in the core sectors: crude petroleum, petroleum refined products, coal, electricity, cement and finished steel – were higher at 5.8 per cent as against 5.4 per cent in the corresponding period in 2003-04, official data released here today show.  

In November, output of refined petroleum products could grow by only about one per cent (against 20 per cent a year ago period), electricity generation by 4 per cent (4.8 per cent) and finished steel by 6.4 per cent (8.4 per cent), pulling down the overall infrastructure growth. But for coal’s impressive growth of 7.1 per cent from a meagre 2.2 per cent in previous year period, cement’s 11.4 per cent (4.6 per cent) and crude oil’s 0.9 per cent from negative 1.1 per cent, the growth in infrastructure would have slowed down more in November.  

During the first eight months of this fiscal, the growth in electricity generation and coal production more than doubled to 6.8 per cent and 7.2 per cent, finished steel output growth was up to 6.7 per cent and crude output recorded 3.3 per cent, offsetting the fall in growth of finished steel and petroleum refined products and leading to marginal rise in overall infrastructure growth to 5.8 per cent.  Cement production stood at 84.86Mt (79.54Mt) while output of finished steel was 26.025Mt (24.932Mt).