CORE SECTOR (Syllabus: GS Paper 3 – Economy)

Context: Recently, India's eight core sectors recorded a growth of 12.1 percent in October, as reported by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.

Core Sector

• About: Core sectors of an economy are  the key industries in the economy.
• 8 Core Sectors of the Indian Economy: Coal, Crude Oil, Natural Gas, Refinery Products, Fertiliser, Steel, Cement, Electricity.
• Weight in IIP: These eight industries have a combined share of above 40.27% in the Index of Industrial Production (IIP).

oDecreasing order of their weightage: Refinery Products > Electricity > Steel > Coal > Crude Oil > Natural Gas > Cement > Fertilizers.

Index of Eight Core Industries (ICI): Prepared and released by the Office of the Economic Adviser (OEA), Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), Ministry of Commerce & Industry, GOI.

• Released: Every month. 
• Base Year: 2011-12.

Index of Industrial Production: IIP is a composite indicator that measures short-term changes in the volume of production of a basket of industrial products, during a given period (usually a month), with respect to a chosen base period.

• Base Year: 2011-2012
• Compiled and Published: by Central Statistical Organization (now known as National Statistics Office (NSO)), under Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI).
• Published – Monthly, with a time lag of 6 weeks
• .Weightage (approx): 77.5 % to manufacturing followed by 14.5 % to mining and 8 % to electricity.