Infra growth bounces back in Nov, up 6.8%

After touching five-year low of 0.3% in October, growth in key infrastructure output bounced back in November to 6.8%, thus brightening prospects for industrial production for the month.

Riding on a stellar growth in cement, electricity and refinery products, the eight infrastructure sectors which have weightage of 38% in the overall Index of Industrial Production (IIP), considerably improved year-on-year as well from 3.7% in November 2010.

However, due to lagging performance in the previous months, the April-November growth of the core industries stood at 4.6% as against 5.6% in the same period last fiscal, according to the data released today.

Except for crude oil, natural gas and fertilisers, all other segments registered healthy growth in November.

The maximum growth was witnessed in cement which expanded by 16.6%, while there was a contraction of 4.3% in the same period last fiscal.

Electricity and steel output grew by 14.1% and 5.1% against 3.5% and 7.6%, respectively, in the same month last year.

Coal and petroleum refinery products growth went up by 4.9% and 11.2% in November 2011.

However, crude oil and natural gas output contracted by 5.6% and 10.1% from a positive growth of 17% and 5.5%, year-on-year, respectively.