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NEW DELHI: Growth of eight core industries dropped to 2.1 per cent in July, mainly due to contraction in coal, crude oil and natural gas production, according to a government data released on Monday.

The eight core sector industries -- coal, crude oil, natural gas, refinery products, fertiliser, steel, cement and electricity -- had expanded by 7.3 per cent in July last year.

These core industries comprise 40.27 per cent of the weight of items included in the Index of Industrial Production (IIP).

Ouput of coal, crude oil, natural gas and refinery products recorded negative growth during the month under review.

Similarly, growth rate in production of steel, cement and electricity declined to 6.6 per cent, 7.9 per cent and 4.2 per cent, respectively, as against 6.9 per cent, 11.2 per cent and 6.7 per cent.

However, fertiliser output marginally grew by 1.5 per cent in July 2019 as against 1.3 per cent in July 2018.

For April-July period, the eight sectors growth rate almost halved to 3 per cent as compared to 5.9 per cent in the same period last year.

The growth rate of these eight sectors are declining since April this year. It slowed down to 5.2 per cent in April from 5.8 per cent. Then it came down to 4.3 per cent in May and 0.7 per cent in June.

The GDP data too has shown deceleration with the growth rate coming down to over six year low of 5 per cent in the first quarter of the current fiscal, mainly on account of sharp dip in manufacturing sector, which registered almost a flat growth of 0.6 per cent.

