Friday, April 29 2005 18:27 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: Commitment of the UPA (United Progressive Alliance) Government notwithstanding, infrastructure growth slowed down to 4.4 per cent during 2004-05 mainly due to poor showing by petroleum refining, coal and steel sectors.

The six infrastructure industries, which has a combined weightage of 26.68 per cent in the Index of Industrial Production, had posted a high of 6.2 per cent growth during 2003-04.

However, during 2004-05, crude petroleum, cement and electricity improved their growth performance, according to official figures released today (Apr 29, 2005).

March 2005 witnessed 3.7 per cent growth as compared to a high of 8.3 per cent during March 2004, mainly due to lacklustre performance of all the industries except in coal and cement sectors.

During 2004-05, the growth deceleration was sharp in finished steel and petroleum refining products.

Finished steel production growth was recorded at 3.7 per cent in April-March 2005, which was almost one-third of the rate ticked in the previous year.

In the case of petroleum refining products, growth was almost halved to 4.3 per cent during 2004-05 as compared to a high of 8.2 per cent in the previous year.

Coal production slowed down to 3.9 per cent in 2004-05 as against 5.8 per cent in the previous fiscal.

In contrast, crude petroleum, electricity (which carries the highest weight in the infrastructure basket) and cement sectors witnessed marginal growth to 1.8 per cent, 5.2 per cent and 6.6 per cent respectively during 2004-05.

The growth in these sectors were 1.0 per cent, 5.0 per cent and 6.1 per cent during 2003-04.