In News:

• Core sector growth slowed to 3.5% in November, the slowest in 16 months, from 4.8% in October, due in large part to a slowdown in the coal, cement and electricity sectors.

Explained:

sector	Nov 2018	Oct 2018
coal	3.7	11.3
Cement	8.8	18.4
Steel	6	2.6
Crude Oil	3.5	-5
Natural gas	0.5	-0.9
Refinery Products	2.3	1.3
Fertilizer	-8.1	-11.5
Electricity	5.4	10.9
	Growth in percentage

 

What is core sector?

• Core industry can be defined as the main industry of the economy. In most countries, there is particular industry that seems to be backbone of all other industries and it qualifies to be the core industry. In India, there are eight core sectors comprising of coal, crude oil, natural gas, refinery products, fertilizers, steel, cement and electricity. The electricity has the maximum weight of 10.32% followed by Steel (6.68%), Petroleum Refinery (5.94%), Crude Oil production (5.22 %), Coal production (4.38 %), Cement (2.41%), Natural Gas production (1.71 %) and Fertilizer production (1.25%). These eight Core Industries comprise nearly 40% of weight of items included in Index of Industrial Production (IIP), which measures factory output.
• The Eight Core Industries comprise 40.27 per cent of the weight of items included in the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) and released by DIPP (min of commerce and industries).