Index of Core Industries growth rises by 5% in June 2026 under new revised base year series
New Delhi, July 20
The Index of Core Industries grew by 5.0 per cent in June 2026 on a year-on-year basis, compared with June 2025. This marks an improvement over the growth rate of 3.2 per cent recorded in May 2026, according to the Ministry of Commerce & Industry.
The index reflects the updated series released by the Office of Economic Adviser (OEA), Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), which replaced the earlier 2011-12 base year with the new 2022-23 base year.
Cumulative growth rate of the core industries during the period of April to June 2026 stood at 3.6 per cent (Provisional Estimate), compared to 1.0 per cent recorded in the corresponding period of the previous year.
Among individual sectors, performance varied significantly across commodities during the month.
According to the Ministry, "Iron Ore, Electricity, Cement, Steel, and Coal observed (Y-o-Y) growth rate of 43.9 per cent, 9.8 per cent, 9.8 per cent, 4.6 per cent, and 1.4 per cent respectively, whereas Natural Gas, Crude Oil, Refinery Products, and Fertilizers witnessed negative growth in June 2026."
The Ministry highlighted that specific core items provided the primary momentum to overall industrial growth. "Iron Ore and Electricity have been the major drivers of overall growth of ICI during recent months," the Ministry noted.
The transition to the new base year introduced structural changes in how the index tracks industrial activity, expanding the list of monitored sectors. "Owing to intensive use of Iron ore in the production process, and its contribution to industrial development, it has been included in the list of core industries as a new item in the revised series of ICI (Base Year 2022-23)," the Ministry stated.
With the addition of iron ore, "the number of core industries have increased from eight to nine in the new series."
Methodological changes were also applied to individual industry components to ensure consistency with broader economic indicators. "Gross production data has been used for compilation of the Steel index in the new ICI series, replacing the use of net production data in ICI (2011-12) series, to make it consistent with Index of Industrial Production (IIP)," the Ministry stated.
Furthermore, adjustments were made to the coal sector framework to eliminate redundant tracking. "Only Raw Coal has been retained in the new series of ICI, by excluding Coal Middling and Washed Coal in order to remove double counting, since Coal Middling and Washed Coal are made from Raw Coal," the Ministry added.
Regarding the weight distribution across sectors, "Following the earlier practice, the weights of the ICI (2022-23) series have been derived from the weights of the corresponding items of IIP (2022-23) series, which have been pro-rata distributed to 100," according to the data.
— ANI
Reader Comments
Finally some positive numbers! Iron ore at 43.9% is incredible—our mining sector is really picking up. But I do wonder how much of this is driven by domestic demand vs exports. Also, would love to see more focus on renewable energy instead of just coal. 😊
The base year revision makes sense—2011-12 was outdated given how much the economy has changed. Including iron ore as a core industry is a smart move, considering its role in steel and infrastructure. But need to see if this growth translates to more jobs on the ground. Data is good, but implementation matters.
Interesting to see the new base year's impact. The 3.6% April-June cumulative growth versus 1% last year is a big jump. Fertilizers being negative is worrying though—how are we managing food security if that sector is shrinking? Guess imports are filling the gap.
Cement at 9.8% shows infrastructure is booming—good for the construction sector and housing. But crude oil and refinery products declining is a red flag for energy security. Also, including iron ore but not something like renewable energy components seems short-sighted. The old base year was due for a change, but methodology tweaks always raise questions about comparability. 📊
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