New Delhi: Core sector growth declined to 2.1 per cent in July as the production of coal, natural gas and crude oil dropped, official data showed.
The eight core sectors of coal, crude oil, natural gas, refinery products, fertiliser, steel, cement and electricity had recorded a growth of 7.3 per cent in the year-ago month.
The sectors comprise 40.27 per cent of the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) which measures overall industrial growth.
Production of steel, cement and electricity expanded at 6.6 per cent, 7.9 per cent and 4.2 per cent, respectively, as against 6.9 per cent, 11.2 per cent and 6.7 per cent in the year-ago month.
Fertiliser output grew by just 1.5 per cent in July as against 1.3 per cent in July 2018.
For the April-July period, the eight sectors growth rate almost halved to 3 per cent as compared to 5.9 per cent in the same period last year.
The growth rate of these eight sectors is declining since April this year. It slowed down to 5.2 per cent in April from 5.8 per cent. Then it came down to 4.3 per cent in May and 0.7 per cent in June.
The GDP data too has shown deceleration with the growth rate coming down to over six-year low of 5 per cent in the first quarter of the current fiscal, mainly on account of a sharp dip in the manufacturing sector, which registered almost a flat growth of 0.6 per cent.