Amidst crisis in the global financial markets, India on Friday reported a sharp drop in industrial growth to 1.3 per cent in August from a high of 10.9 a year-ago.

The manufacturing sector put out a dismal performance growing by a mere 1.1 per cent as against 10.7 per cent in the same period a year ago.

For the five-month period (April-August 2008-09), the industrial growth saw a big drop to 4.9 per cent, from 10 per cent.

After a brief recovery, the Bombay Stock Exchange benchmark Sensex fell again by over 900 points tracking release of the IIP and core infrastructure data.

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The growth in key infrastructure industries too dipped to 2.3 per cent in August 2008, compared with 9.5 per cent in the same period last year.

The cement sector declined to 1.9 per cent against 16.7 per cent in August 2007, while coal output dropped to 5.9 per cent compared with 8 per cent in the corresponding year.

Finished (carbon) steel growth also declined to 4.4 per cent in August, from 9.6 per cent in the same month last year.

For the April-August period of 2008-09, crude oil production registered a negative growth of 0.9 per cent, against one per cent during the same period last year, while petroleum refinery products dropped to 4.8 per cent from a healthy 10.4 per cent in the same period last year.

Coal production registered a growth of 7.3 per cent against 2.1 per cent in April-August 2007-08. Electricity generation posted a growth of 2.2 per cent, down from 8.3 per cent last year.

While cement production in the first five months of the current fiscal declined to 5.7 per cent, compared with 9.3 per cent during the same period last year. Finished steel production registered a growth of 3.9 per cent, down from 7.4 per cent a year ago.

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