According to an official release, overall index (Base: 1993-94=100) of these six infrastructure industries, which account for a total weight of 26.88 per cent in the index of industrial production, rose to 142.5 in July 1999, as against 134.0 in July 1998.

The electricity production has recorded a positive growth of 4.9 per cent, steel--12.3 per cent, petroleum refinery products--11.9 per cent, and cement--19.2 per cent, whereas, coal and crude petroleum have recorded negative growth of 0.9 per cent and 2.7 per cent respectively in July 1999 over July 1998.

The overall growth rate for the six industries in the first quarter, now stands at 5.7 per cent as against 4.7 per cent recorded in the corresponding period last year.

Electricity, steel, petroleum refinery products andcement have recorded positive growth rates of 4.6 per cent, 7.4 per cent, 14.9 per cent and 20.6 per cent respectively, whereas coal and crude petroleum have shown negative growth of 3.2 per cent and 0.9 per cent respectively in the first quarter as compared to the same period last year.

Though registering a growth of 19.2 per cent in July 1999 over the same month last year, cement industry production, after showing distinct recovery in previous months, has dipped by 9.4 per cent in the month. The decline in cement production in the month is due to the onset of monsoon.

The Industry minitry has outlined that the steel sector was showing encouraging performance in the current financial year. Top officials in the ministry felt that seen in the context of negative growth during the whole of last year, recovery seems to be on the card in the steel sector.

Considering the fact that, there was complementarity between the cement and the steel sector, it was expected that growth in the steel sector would movealong with the growth in the cement sector, they said.

However, hydro electity generation, crude production, and coal sector have remained the cause for worry. In hydel sector, output in the last four months were lower than their respective months last year.

In the same manner, coal sector is showing negative performance month by month this year over the last year, though there has been marginal improvement in each month over its previous month in 1999-2000. The secor is experiencing stagnant production level of 20-22 million tonnes.

Sources said that Industry ministry was analysing the reasons for the failure in improving the performance in the crude petroleum sector in the current financial year over previous year. The sector has seen a marginal decline in production during April-June this year over the corresponding period last year.