THEBUSINESSBYTES BUREAU

NEW DELHI, JULY 20, 2026

India’s core industrial sector received a statistical overhaul on Monday as the Office of the Economic Adviser (OEA) under the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) unveiled the revised Index of Core Industries (ICI) with 2022-23 as the new base year, replacing the 2011-12 series, while reporting a stronger 5 per cent year-on-year growth in June 2026 compared with 3.2 per cent in May.

The revamped index introduces significant methodological changes to better capture the evolving structure of India’s industrial economy. The most notable revision is the inclusion of Iron Ore as a core industry, expanding the index from eight to nine sectors. The government said the mineral has been added because of its extensive role in industrial production and its growing contribution to the country’s industrial development.

The revised series also aligns the methodology for calculating the Steel index with the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) by shifting to gross production data instead of net production data. In the Coal segment, only Raw Coal has been retained, while Coal Middling and Washed Coal have been excluded to eliminate double counting, as both are derived from raw coal.

The weights assigned to the nine core industries have been drawn from the revised IIP (2022-23) series and proportionately adjusted to total 100. To ensure continuity between the two datasets, the OEA has also introduced a linking factor of 1.47 between the old and the revised overall ICI series.

According to provisional estimates, the core sector’s 5 per cent growth in June was driven primarily by strong performances in Iron Ore, Electricity, Cement, Steel and Coal. Iron Ore emerged as the standout performer with an impressive 43.9 per cent annual growth, followed by Electricity and Cement, which both expanded 9.8 per cent. Steel output rose 4.6 per cent, while Coal production increased 1.4 per cent during the month.

However, the momentum was partly offset by declines in Natural Gas, Crude Oil, Refinery Products and Fertilizers, all of which recorded negative year-on-year growth in June.

The Commerce and Industry Ministry said Iron Ore and Electricity have emerged as the principal drivers of overall core sector growth in recent months, underscoring the increasing importance of mining and power generation in supporting industrial activity.

The revised data also pointed to improving industrial momentum during the current financial year. The cumulative growth of the Index of Core Industries for the April-June 2026 quarter stood at 3.6 per cent, a marked improvement over the 1 per cent expansion recorded in the corresponding period of the previous fiscal.

The government said the revised ICI series is being released with retrospective data from April 2023 onwards, enabling users to analyse historical trends under the updated methodology. The earlier 2011-12 base year series will now be discontinued.

The OEA added that the provisional Index of Core Industries will continue to be released on the 20th of every month, or the next working day if the date falls on a holiday. The next release, covering July 2026, is scheduled for August 20, 2026.