The growth of eight core sectors recorded at 4.5 percent in July, a significant drop from 9.9 percent expansion in the same month a year ago, the commerce ministry data showed on Wednesday.
On monthly basis also, it has seen a massive drop from 13.2 percent growth in June, the data showed. Output in six of the eight core sectors grew in July.
These six sectors are — coal, refinery products, electricity, fertilisers, cement and steel.
Production of coal rose 11.4 percent year-on-year in July, and electricity generation improved 2.2 percent, said the commerce ministry.
Both refinery products and fertilisers output rose 6.2 percent in July from a year earlier. Cement production increased 2.1 percent while steel output improved 5.7 percent in July.
Crude oil output fell 3.8 percent from a year earlier. Natural gas production fell 0.3 percent in July.
Meanwhile, the Indian economy expanded by 13.5 percent in the April-June quarter of FY23, helped by a low base and robust recovery in the contact-intensive sectors, official data showed on Wednesday.
In the previous quarter (January-March of FY22), the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) grew 4.1 percent, according to data released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI).
The 13.5 percent growth rate in April-June 2022 is much lower than the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) forecast of 16.2 percent.
But the April-June GDP growth rate is the second-highest the country has ever recorded. Though this comparable quarterly GDP data of the past is available only till 2012. The only time the Indian economy grew more than this was in April-June 2021, when the GDP had expanded by a record 20.1 percent due to an extremely strong base effect.
