Infrastructure output in Oct down by 0.6%

The Union government’s data on December 2 showed that country’s infrastructure sector output fell 0.6 per cent year-on-year in October mainly on lower natural gas and coal production, after growing at its fastest clip in one year the previous month. Output grew at 8 per cent in September.

In this fiscal’s first seven months, infrastructure output grew 2.6 per cent from a year earlier. The index comprises coal, crude oil, oil refinery, natural gas, steel, cement, electricity and fertiliser production and accounts for 37.9 per cent of India’s industrial output, which expanded just 1 per cent during the 2012/13 fiscal year.