India’s core sector output expanded 8.4% in April, the fastest pace in six months, with crude oil and steel the only sectors among the eight infrastructure industries comprising the index to record a marginal decline in production from the year-earlier period.
However, on a sequential basis, the Index of Eight Core Industries (ICI), which constitutes about 40% of the Index for Industrial Production (IIP), declined 9.5% last month from March 2022 levels.
Electricity generation, which grew 10.7% year-on-year, was the only industry to record a sequential increase as well, rising 0.8% from March. Coal output, which was 28.8% higher than in April 2021, shrank 25.6% from the preceding month’s levels.
Cement output grew 8%, even as steel declined 0.7% from a year ago, but both contracted 13.6% from March 2022 levels. Similarly, fertilisers and refinery products were up 8.7% and 9.2% year-on-year, respectively, but fell 10.9% and 5.5% from March.
“The IIP growth in April can also be expected to be in the higher single digit range of 6% to 8%, based on these numbers,” said Madan Sabnavis, chief economist at Bank of Baroda. He added that some of the numbers like coal’s 28.8% jump and power’s 10.7% growth, while impressive, were “difficult to reconcile with the power crisis that was there in April with shortage of coal and power being reported”.
