By IANS,
New Delhi : Sluggish performance by six core infrastructure sectors has led to their growth falling to 3.5 percent in May, against 7.8 percent in the corresponding period last year.
According to official data released Wednesday, the petroleum refinery products registered a poor growth of 0.1 percent in May, compared to 14.9 percent last year.
During April-May 2008-09, the growth rate of these core industries declined to 3.5 percent against 6.9 percent during the corresponding period last fiscal.
Growth in electricity also declined to two percent as against 9.3 percent, and the cement sector registered a growth of 3.8 percent compared to 9.9 percent.
Finished steel products too posted a poor growth of 5.2 percent in May. They had grown at a rate of 8.4 percent during the corresponding period in 2007.
However, crude oil sector witnessed a positive growth of 3.2 percent in May against 1.6 percent last year, while coal registered a growth of 8.3 percent against 0.5 percent.
The index of six core infrastructure industries has a combined weight of 26.7 percent in the Index of Industrial Production (IIP).