India's core sectors growth slows to 2.6% in August

New Delhi: The growth of eight core sectors slowed down to 2.6 percent in August mainly due to contraction in steel output.

The expansion in eight infrastructure sectors, which contribute about 38 percent to the overall industrial production, was 5.9 percent in the same month last year.

The August output, however, was higher than the previous month when the core sectors had expanded by just 1.1 percent.

According to the data released by the Commerce and Industry Ministry Wednesday, the steel output in the month under review declined to 5.9 percent as against a positive growth of 9.4 percent in August 2014.

Coal, cement and electricity output slowed down to 0.4 percent, 5.4 percent and 5.6 percent respectively during the last month as compared to 13.2 percent, 10 percent and 12.9 percent.

However crude oil, natural gas, refinery products and fertilisers recorded healthy growth.

In March and April this year, the eight industries witnessed contraction of 0.1 percent and 0.4 percent respectively. However, in May and June the core sectors expanded by 4.4 percent and 3 percent respectively.

During the April-August period of the current fiscal, the core sectors' output expanded by 2.2 percent as against 5.6 percent in the first five months of 2014-15.

The overall growth of eight core industries in the entire 2014-15 fiscal stood at 3.5 percent as against 4.2 percent in the previous fiscal.