The Index of Eight Core Industries (ICI) registered a growth of 5.1 per cent in May, 2019 over May, 2018.The cumulative growth of these industries during April-May 2019-20 was5.7 per centas compared to the growth of 4.4 per cent during April- May2018-19.
The growth rate for ICI for April 2019 has been revised upward to 6.3 per cent from 2.6 per cent due to upward revisions in production of Coal, Crude Oil, Steel, Cement and Electricity. The highest upward revision of 17.2 per cent has been in the production of steel for the month of April, 2019, by Joint Plant Committee. JPC has now included a product called HRPO under the item ‘CR coils’ for reporting within the production of finished steel for including in the compilation of Index of eight core industries from the month of April 2019. This inclusion has significantly impacted the growth rate of Steel for the months of April 2019 and May 2019. Further, JPC has also carried upward revision in production of ‘HR coils and sheets of mild steel’.
Fourout of the eight core industries registered a positive growth rate in May 2019 over May 2018.
Steel sector has registered double digit growth of 19.9 percent in the month of May 2019 over May 2018. Electricity sector has registered growth of 7.2 percent in the month of May 2019 over May 2018, which is the highest in last six months, i.e. since November 2018. Electricitygeneration was 248.1 billion units during April-May 2019-20 as compared to 232.7 billion units in the same period of previous year.
Cement and Coal sectors have registered moderate growth of 2.8 percent and 1.8 percent respectively in the month of May 2019 over May 2018. The production of Coal was 58.62 million tonnes in May 2019 as compared to 56.35 million tonnes in April 2019. Cement production was 57.7 million tonnes in April-May 2019-20 as compared to 56.3 million tonnes in the same period of previous year.
The production of Natural Gas has remained unchanged in the month of May 2019, with production of 2662.359 million cubic meters (MCM) as compared to May 2018.
However, the production of Crude Oil, Refinery products and Fertilizers sectors have declined by (-) 6.9 per cent, (-) 1.5 per cent and (-) 1.0 per cent respectively in the month of May 2019 over May2018.
The industry wise growth rates (in per cent) are summarised below:
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