Led by dismal performance in crude petroleum, coal and cement sector, infrastructure growth plummeted to 1.2 per cent in July compared to a healthy 6.1 per cent growth recorded in the same month last year.
Cumulative growth of six infrastructure industries comprising crude petroleum, petroleum refinery products, coal, electricity, cement and finished steel, fell to a dismal 1 per cent in the first four months of the current fiscal from 7.6 per cent growth the previous year.
On a month-on-month basis, however, the infrastructure sector posted a minor recovery with the index growing by 1.2 per cent in July this year up from 0.4 per cent in the previous month.
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Sector-wise, cement posted the worst performance with 6.1 per cent fall in production, down from a 6.2 per cent growth in July 2000. This was followed by crude petroleum where the index reported a decrease of 5.7 per cent.
The electricity sector, however, reported a 4.2 per cent growth in July 2001, up from 2.6 per cent a year ago.
Steel production went up by 3 per cent as against a 8.3 per cent growth in July 2000.
Petroleum refinery reported the sharpest drop in production with the growth rate going down from 34.9 per cent to 2.5 per cent in July 2000.