India’s core sector grows 3.7% in December on higher fertiliser, cement and coal output

The combined Index of Eight Core Industries (ICI) went up by 3.7 per cent (on a year-to-year basis) in December 2025, the increase being attributed to the positive growth of the sectors of cement, steel, electricity, fertiliser and coal in the last month, according to the government data released on Tuesday.

The preliminary estimate of growth rate for the Index of Eight Core Industries for the month of November 2025 was eventually determined to be 2.1 per cent.

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The provisional growth rate of ICI during the first nine months of 2025-26 (April-December) is 2.6 per cent (provisional) in comparison to the same period in the previous year, according to the data released by the Commerce Ministry.

Data showed that the production of steel in December 2025 was up by 6.9 per cent compared to December 2024. The total index for steel was up by 9.5 per cent over the period of April to December 2025-26 when compared with the corresponding period of the last year.

The production of coal last month was up by 3.6 per cent compared to December 2024, and its total index was down by 0.7 per cent over the period of April to December 2025-26 when compared with the corresponding period of the last year.

In addition, the production of fertilisers in December 2025 was up by 4.1 per cent compared to December 2024, and its total index was up by 1.7 per cent over the period of April to December 2025-26 when compared with the corresponding period of the last year.

According to the data, the production of cement in December 2025 compared to December 2024 was up by 13.5 per cent. The cumulative index for cement production was also 8.8 per cent more in the period from April to December, 2025-26 than in the corresponding previous period.

Furthermore, last month's total electricity generation was 5.3 per cent higher, with the accompanying index rising by 0.3 per cent in the period from April to December 2025-26.

On the other hand, the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) portrayed a phenomenal growth of 6.7 per cent (quick estimate) in November, which was a 1.7 percentage points increase from the same month last year when the growth rate was 5 per cent. The manufacturing sector experienced a significant rise of 8 per cent, year-on-year, in November.

The increase is supported by the fact that 20 out of the 23 industry groups at the "NIC 2-digit-level" have shown a positive growth in November 2025 compared to November 2024 in the manufacturing sector.

With agency inputs