Growth in output for the eight core sectors, constituting over one-third of the factory production, saw a bit of improvement as it rose to 2.6 per cent in December from 1.6 per cent in the previous month.
However, growth in the core industries, which comprises 37.9 per cent of the index of industrial production (IIP), was lower than 4.9 per cent in the same month of 2011-12, official data showed on Thursday.
The year-on-year decline in growth was on account of contraction in production of coal, natural gas and fertiliser, the data released by the ministry of commerce and industry showed. The cumulative expansion of the eight industries--crude oil, natural gas, cement, coal, electricity, steel, petroleum refinery products and fertilisers--was down at 3.3 per cent in April-December 2012 against 4.8 per cent in the last corresponding period.
As the industrial production saw a contraction of 0.1 per cent in November, against a sharp over eight per cent growth in October, the figures for December is being watched keenly to assess a trend. The figures for October and November are being seen as a pre-Diwali, post-Diwali kind of aberration.
For December, the IIP figures have to rise sharply to show even a reasonable growth. This is so because in December 2011, IIP stood at 180.3 points versus 167.5 points in November. In November 2012, IIP was 167.3 points. Industrial production has seen a constant slump in the current financial year, witnessing negative growth in five out of eight months till November.
Production of natural gas and coal contracted 14.9 per cent and 0.2 per cent, respectively, in the month under review, against a growth of 10.8 and 5.5 per cent, respectively.
Fertiliser output also shrank by 3.8 per cent against 0.8 per cent growth in December 2011.
Steel and electricity production slowed to 5.2 per cent and 4.4 per cent in the reported period against 10.2 per cent and 8.9 per cent, respectively, in the year-ago period. Cement output slowed to 3.9 per cent from 13.6 per cent in December 2011.
However, crude oil and petroleum refinery output went up by one per cent and five per cent against the fall of 5.5 per cent and 0.7 per cent, respectively, in December 2011.
