Iron ore joins core sector as government revamps index

New Delhi: The government on Friday included iron ore in the list of core sector infrastructure industries to help capture the performance of the economy in a better way. Consequently, the number of core industries has increased to nine from eight, the commerce and industry ministry said in a statement.

The government will release a revised series of the Index of Core Industries (ICI) with a new base year of 2022-23 on July 20. The revised series will replace the existing 2011-12 base year series.

"In view of the extensive use of iron ore in industrial production and its significant contribution to industrial development, iron ore has been included as a core industry in the revised ICI series," it said.


In the coal sector, only raw coal has been retained in the revised ICI series. Coal middlings and washed coal have been excluded to eliminate double counting, as both are derived from raw coal.

To ensure consistency with the IIP, the revised ICI series uses gross production data for compiling the Steel Index, replacing the net production data used in the ICI (2011-12) series, the statement said.

Alongside the provisional reading for June 2026, the government will also publish a back series for 38 months from April 2023 to May 2026. The weights for the ICI (2022-23) series have been derived from the weights of the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) 2022-23 series released by the ministry of statistics and programme implementation. The weights of the ICI basket items, drawn from the IIP, have been redistributed on a pro-rata basis to total 100 for finalising the weights of the ICI item basket.

India has already revised its Consumer Price index, Wholesale Price Index, Gross Domestic Product, and Index of Industrial Production data besides releasing a producer price index on a trial basis and an index of services production.