Production at India's eight core industries grew merely 1.8 per cent in November, against the 8-month high of 6.5 per cent recorded in October, official figures released on Monday revealed.

Production of natural gas, coal and cement shrank in November from the corresponding month of the previous year. Electricity, steel and petroleum also suffered declined in their production growth rates.

Cement production suffered a marginal decline of 0.2 per cent in November against a growth of 6.8 per cent in the previous month, while coal production slipped 4.4 per cent against a strong growth of 10.9 per cent during the same period.

Production of natural gas slipped 15.2 per cent in November against a decline of 14.9 per cent in October.

Growth of refinery and electricity productions slipped from 20.3 per cent and 5.6 per cent to 6.6 per cent to 2.3 per cent during the same period of time, respectively.

Growth in fertilizer and crude oil productions, however, expanded by 5 per cent and 0.8 per cent in November, from 2 per cent and -0.4 per cent in the previous month, respectively.

The cumulative expansion of the core eight industries slipped from around 4.8 per cent in April-November 2011 to 3.5 per cent in the same period of 2012.

The eight core industries, viz. crude oil, natural gas, coal, cement, steel, electricity, petroleum refinery products and fertilizers, have a weight of 37.9 per cent in the overall index of industrial production (IIP).