The growth of six infrastructure industries fell to 4.5% in October from 9.9% in the same period of the previous year, due to decline in production of crude petroleum and petroleum refinery, an official release said.
 
The infrastructure index, comprising sectors such as Cement, Crude, Refining, Coal, Electricity and Steel, declined to 6.2% from 8.9% in the corresponding period of last year, it added.

The Crude oil production registered a negative growth of 0.1% in October compared to 9.3% in October 2006 while, Refinery output grew by a much slower rate of 2.8% versus 18.1% in the same month last year.

The electricity generation in October also dipped to 4.2 per cent from 9.7 per cent in the same month last year while, coal production saw a growth of 9.2 per cent.

The cement and finished steel production also slipped in October 2007.