Table of Contents
Core Sector Industries
The Core Sector in India encompasses significant industries such as Coal, Crude Oil, Natural Gas, Refinery Products, Fertilizers, Steel, Cement, and Electricity. Together, these sectors contribute to 40.27 percent of the total weight in the Index of Industrial Production (IIP). These core sectors are pivotal to the country’s economy and are recognized as key industries.
India’s eight key industries comprise Electricity, Steel, Refinery Products, Crude Oil, Coal, Cement, Natural Gas, and Fertilizers. The Office of the Economic Adviser (OEA), along with the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) and the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, compiles and publishes the index that represents the performance of these industries.
Various Sectors In India
The index measuring the performance of eight crucial industries, namely coal, crude oil, natural gas, refinery products, fertilizers, steel, cement, and power, provides an evaluation of both their collective and individual production outputs. These core industries encompass the key sectors within the Indian economy and play a significant role in its overall growth and development.
Sector | Description | Weightage |
Coal | Coal production, excluding Coking coal. | 10.33 % |
Electricity | generation of thermal, nuclear, hydro | 19.85 % |
Crude Oil | Total crude oil production. | 8.98 % |
Cement | Production in large plants and mini plants. | 5.37 % |
Natural Gas | Total production of natural gas. | 6.88 % |
Steel | Production of alloy and non-alloy steel only. | 17.92 % |
Refinery Products | Total refinery production. | 28.04 % |
Fertilizer | Urea, ammonium sulfate, calcium ammonium nitrate, complex grade fertilizer, and single superphosphate, among others. | 2.63 % |
8 Core Sector Industries: Context
- According to the recently released official date, production of eight infrastructure sectors expanded by 3.8 percent in December 2021 against a 0.4 percent contraction in the same month last year.
Core Sector Industries: Key points
- Barring crude oil and steel, all sectors recorded positive growth in December 2021.
- The growth rate of the eight infrastructures stood at 12.6 percent during April-December this fiscal as against a negative growth of 9.8 percent during the same period last fiscal.
- According to the data, production of coal rose by 5.2 percent, natural gas by 19.5 percent, refinery products by 5.9 percent, fertilizers by 3.5 percent, cement by 12.9 percent, and electricity by 2.5 percent in December.
- The output of crude oil and steel declined by 1.8 percent and 1 percent respectively during the period under review.
What are the Core Sectors in India?
- The main or key industries constitute the core sectors of an economy.
- In India, there are eight sectors that are considered the core sectors as they have a major impact on the Indian economy and significantly affect most other industries as well
- The eight-core sectors of the Indian economy are
- Electricity,
- Steel,
- Refinery products,
- Crude oil,
- Coal,
- Cement,
- Natural gas, and
- Fertilizers
- The eight industries have a combined share of 27 percent in the Index of Industrial Production (IIP), which gives the growth rates of different industry groups in a specified period.
Eight Core Industries’ weightage
- The eight Core Industries in decreasing order of their weightage: Refinery Products> Electricity> Steel> Coal> Crude Oil> Natural Gas> Cement> Fertilizers.
Industry | Weight (In percentage) |
Petroleum & Refinery production | 28.04 |
Electricity generation | 19.85 |
Steel production | 17.92 |
Coal production | 10.33 |
Crude Oil production | 8.98 |
Natural Gas Production | 6.88 |
Cement production | 5.37 |
Fertilizers production | 2.63 |
About the Index of Industrial Production (IIP)
- The Index of Industrial Production (IIP) is a composite indicator that measures the short-term changes in the volume of production of a basket of industrial products during a given period with respect to that in a chosen base period.
- It is published monthly by the Central Statistical Organisation (CSO), Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) six weeks after the reference month ends.
- The base year of the Index of Eight Core Industries has been revised from the year 2004-05 to 2011-12 from April 2017.