India's core sector growth slows down to 3.1%

The growth of eight infrastructure industries slowed down to 3.1 per cent in July, against 4.5 per cent in the same month last year, mainly due to contraction in crude oil and natural gas production.

The growth in July, however, was higher than the previous month when the core sectors had expanded by just 0.1 per cent.

Crude oil and natural gas production contracted by 2.3 per cent and 16.1 per cent respectively in July, according to the official data released .

The eight infrastructure industries have a weight of about 38 per cent in the overall industrial production.

Petroleum refinery production expanded by 5.1 per cent in the month against 26 per cent in July 2012. Steel production grew by 7 per cent, while cement output was up by 0.8 per cent in July this year.

Coal and electricity production slowed down by 1.2 per cent and 5.2 per cent as against 2 per cent and 2.7 per cent respectively in July 2012.

Fertiliser output grew by 0.4 per cent in July. During April-July period, the growth of eight infrastructure industries slowed to 1.9 per cent from 6.3 per cent in the same period last year.

The growth was 3.9 per cent in 2012-13 as against 5 per cent in the previous financial year.