New Delhi, Oct 4 (KNN) The core sector comprising of eight core industries drew a growth trajectory of over 4.9% in August, the data from the Ministry of Commerce and Industry revealed.

According to the data, the latest figure from August is a result of the better performance in the electricity and coal sector, even when certain sectors of the core industry registered negative figures

The figure from the eight core industries that amounts to over 40.27 % of the volume of items included in the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) for the month of August this year is higher than 3.1% in August 2016 and 2.6% of July this year.

The data further revealed that the coal production recorded a high of over15.3% in August in the present fiscal as compared to the 9.7 per cent figure from August 2016.

Natural gas recorded a growth of over 4.2 per cent in August this year from a low base of (-) 5.9% fall in August 2016, the data added.

Also steel production registered a growth of over 3 per cent, down from 16.7% in August 2016.

The data suggest that the cement sector growth fell to (-) 1.3 per cent  in August in the present fiscal as compared to the 3.1 per cent growth in August from the previous year.

Also fertilizer output contracted by (-) 0.7 per cent in August as against 2.5 per cent growth data from the previous year.

The refinery sector output maintained an equal level in par with the data from the same month of the previous year, whereas the crude oil production registered negative by (-) 1.6 per cent. (With PIB inputs) (KNN/DA)