Eight core sectors’ output growth spurts to three-month high of 6.7% in February

New Delhi: India's core sectors see 6.7% growth in February, led by coal, gas, and cement, despite fertiliser decline.

India’s eight core sectors’ output growth spurted to a three-month high of 6.7% in February, led by double-digit upticks in coal, natural gas and cement even as fertilisers’ production fell 9.5% to record the sharpest contraction since May 2021.

January’s Index of Core Industries (ICI) was revised to reflect a 4.1% rise, compared with the previous estimate of 3.6%, but that remained the slowest growth in 15 months. This is the second month in a row that fertilisers output dipped year-on-year, and marks the first such streak in two years.

The growth of eight core sectors — coal, crude oil, natural gas, refinery products, fertiliser, steel, cement and electricity — was 4.1% in January.

It was 7.4% in February 2023.

Cumulatively also, the growth rate in the output of these sectors slowed to 7.7 per cent in April-January this fiscal against 8.2 per cent in April-February 2022-23.

The output growth of fertiliser was in the negative zone.

The eight core sectors contribute 40.27% to the country’s Index of Industrial Production (IIP).