Govt adds iron ore as 9th core industry
The Government on Friday said it has included iron ore in the list of core sector infrastructure industries, a move which will help in capturing the performance of the economy in a better way.
Consequently, the number of core industries has increased from eight to nine.
Currently, the Government evaluates the performance of eight key sectors — crude oil, petroleum refinery, cement, electricity, natural gas, fertiliser, finished steel and coal — on a monthly basis.
“In view of the extensive use of iron ore in industrial production and its significant contribution to industrial development, Iron Ore has been included as a core industry in the revised ICI series,” the Commerce and Industry Ministry said in a statement.
The new series with base year 2022-23, containing data for nine key sectors, will be released on July 20 this year.
The revised series will replace the existing Index of Core Industries (ICI) series with the base year 2011-12.
The ministry also said that to ensure consistency with the IIP (Index of Industrial Production), the revised ICI series uses gross production data for compiling the Steel Index, replacing the net production data used in the ICI (2011-12) series.
In the coal sector also, only Raw Coal has been retained in the revised series.
Coal Middlings and Washed Coal have been excluded to eliminate double counting, as both are derived from Raw Coal, it added.
In 2011, the Government included two sectors: natural gas and fertiliser.
Production growth of eight core infrastructure sectors slowed to a seven-month low of 0.5 per cent in May due to a fall in output of coal, crude oil and refinery products.
