Infrastructure sectors grow by 4.6

Among these sectors, saleable steel was the only exception that showed a negative growth rate of 0.8 per cent during April-March of the last financial year, data released by the industry ministry revealed.

As per provisional figures performance in the electricity, coal and crude petroleum sectors has improved during 1997-98 compared to last year. Petroleum refinery products, cement and saleable steel showed slower growth rates during the year. Petroleum refinery products grew by 3.6 per cent during 1997-98 compared to 7 per cent in 1996-97 over the corresponding period.

Among the sixsectors, electricity grew at the rate of 6.6 per cent during the period under review as against a growth of 3.8 per cent a year ago. Coal production grew at a rate of 5 per cent in 1997-98 with a total production of 296 million tonnes compared to 281.9 million tonnes in 1996-97.

The cement industry registered a growth rate of 9.1 per cent in 1997-98 producing 83,160,000 tonne compared to 76,220,000 tonne in the previous year.

These six industries recorded a growth of 4.3 per cent during March 1998 over the corresponding month in the previous year and crude petroleum registered a negative growth rate of 2.7 per cent, the release said.