PIB TrackerFour of the nine core sectors shrank, and the index still grew 4.8%
The Index of Core Industries rose 4.8 per cent in August on a base of 2022-23. Electricity carries 30.932 of the 100 points of weight, and about 78 per cent of the increase.
What happened
- The Index of Core Industries for August 2026 came in at 4.8% YoY, provisional, base 2022-23.
- Growing: Cement 12.5%, Electricity 11.6%, Iron Ore 5.5%, Steel 3.4%, Refinery Products 2.6%.
- Contracting: Fertilizers -12.4%, Natural Gas -4.9%, Coal -3.8%, Crude Oil -3.6%.
- Cumulative April-August 2026 growth is 4.3%, against 2.4% in the same period last year.
- The September index is scheduled for 21 October 2026; provisional indices are released on the 20th of the following month.
For Prelims
- Nine sectors, not eight: on the 2022-23 base the Index of Core Industries covers Coal, Natural Gas, Crude Oil, Refinery Products, Fertilizers, Steel, Cement, Electricity and Iron Ore.
- The weights (2022-23 base): Electricity 30.932, Refinery Products 22.572, Steel 17.584, Crude Oil 7.43, Coal 5.596, Iron Ore 4.905, Cement 4.41, Natural Gas 3.841, Fertilizers 2.731.
- Who publishes it: the Office of the Economic Adviser, Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, Ministry of Commerce & Industry - not MoSPI.
- Release calendar: the provisional index for a month is released on the 20th of the following month, or the next working day.
- Growth rate vs contribution: Iron Ore grew 5.5% and contributed 0.25 index points; Steel grew 3.4% and contributed 0.81. Weight decides, not the growth rate.
- Why the ICI matters: it is released about two weeks before the IIP for the same month, so it is read as an early industrial-output signal.
- The revision habit: provisional estimates are revised when the final index is published - July went from 121.2 to 120.8, a 0.4 point cut.
- Base-year level as a benchmark: an index of 89.8 for Coal means August 2026 output was about 10% below the 2022-23 monthly average.
For UPSC: The cleanest available example of why a weighted index needs reading rather than quoting. Use it on industrial growth and the IIP, on India's energy transition where electricity growth and coal contraction appear in the same table, and on data interpretation questions, where the gap between a sector's growth rate and its contribution to growth is the whole point.
What it is NOT: The release gives no month-on-month seasonally adjusted series, so the fall from 120.8 to 119.2 cannot be separated from ordinary seasonality. It gives no explanation for any sector's movement - the 12.4 per cent fall in Fertilizers, the collapse in the Iron Ore index from 148.7 in June to 96.1 in August, and the 11.6 per cent electricity growth are all reported without cause. It carries no production volumes, only index numbers, so the physical quantities behind the percentages are not recoverable. Sector-wise contributions to growth are shown in a chart that the text does not quantify; the figures used here are computed from the published weights and index levels. And the August number is provisional: on July's precedent, a downward revision of around 0.4 percentage points is possible.
For Mains
Syllabus: GS3.1 · GS3.9 · Linkage L2
Anchor
India's core industries grew 4.8 per cent in August 2026, and four of the nine shrank. Both statements are true because the index is weighted: electricity alone carries 30.932 points of 100, and its 11.6 per cent growth supplied roughly 78 per cent of the increase.
Substantiation (data)
The arithmetic is recoverable from the release. The overall index moved from 113.7 to 119.2, a rise of 5.5 points. Electricity contributed about 4.30 of those points, Steel 0.81, Refinery Products 0.61, Cement 0.60 and Iron Ore 0.25, while Fertilizers subtracted 0.39, Crude Oil 0.26, and Coal and Natural Gas about 0.20 each.
Position
The composition is doing something the headline hides. Electricity, steel and cement are growing while coal, gas and crude contract, which is what a shift from fossil extraction towards generation and construction looks like in an index. Coal at 89.8 and Crude Oil at 94.7 are below their own 2022-23 base-year average.
Counterpoint
Concentration is fragility. If seventy-eight per cent of the month's growth rests on one sector, the headline number tracks that sector's weather, demand and hydrology more than it tracks industrial breadth. The cumulative April-August picture makes it plainer still: five of the nine sectors, carrying 42 per cent of the weight, are contracting over five months, and the index still reports 4.3 per cent.
Problematisation
The series also moves after publication. July was released at 121.2 and finalised at 120.8, turning 5.4 per cent growth into 5.0. August is provisional. And the index fell from 120.8 to 119.2 month-on-month, which no part of the text addresses, because the ICI is reported year-on-year by convention.
Conclusion
The defensible reading is narrow: industrial output grew, the growth was narrow, and the narrowness is measurable rather than inferred. A weighted index is a summary, and the summary is only as informative as the weights that produced it.
Deploys into: Industrial growth and the IIP · Energy transition and coal demand · Index construction and data interpretation · Infrastructure output as a growth signal
Ministry of Commerce & Industry · 2026-09-21 · PRID 2313043 · PIB source ↗