The eight core infrastructure industries expanded by 7.8 per cent in July, compared to 5.7 per cent last year, on the back of robust growth in steel, electricity and cement output.
The growth came despite a fall in natural gas and fertiliser production.
The output of these industries — coal, crude oil, natural gas, petroleum refinery products, fertilisers, finished steel, cement and electricity — had expanded by 5.2 per cent in June.
The eight industries, which account for 37.9 per cent in the overall index of industrial production (IIP), grew 5.8 per cent in the first four months (April-July) of 2011-12 compared to 6.5 per cent a year ago.
Natural gas production registered a decline of 8.2 per cent in compared to 20 per cent growth in July 2010, while fertiliser output continued to contract, this time at 1.6 per cent against 0.3 per cent in the year-ago month.
The two segments together account for 2.96 per cent in IIP — natural gas has 1.71 per cent weight, while fertiliser 1.25 per cent.
Cement production saw robust growth at 10.6 per cent versus a 0.2 per cent decline a year ago and 0.7 per cent decline in June 2011.
However, the growth in cement production declined to 1.8 per cent for the April-July period as against 5.3 per cent growth in the corresponding period a year ago due to low numbers in the initial months.
Electricity generation, which has a weight of 10.32 per cent in IIP, also grew vigorously by 13 per cent, compared to 4.2 per cent in July last year.
Steel production was also robust as it grew 15.5 per cent in July, versus a 2.9 per cent decline in growth last year and 13.2 per cent in June this year.
Crude oil production recorded a major drop in growth at 1.4 per cent, as against 15.8 per cent in the same month last year. The output grew 7.7 per cent in June last year.
Coal production also recorded a drop in annual growth in July to 2.4 per cent, versus 4.5 per cent a year ago. However, coal production in June 2011 declined by 3.3 per cent.
Petroleum refinery output registered a decline in annual growth rate from 13.7 per cent to 3.9 per cent.
