New Delhi, July 29, 2010: Growth in key infrastructure sectors slowed to 3.4% in June, the lowest performance in 10 months, prompting economists to hint that robust industrial expansion may drop to single digit. The six infrastructure industries, with 26.7% weight in the total factory output, saw its pace slowing down in June under the impact of a sharp decline in output growth in cement, electricity and coal.

The infrastructure industries had expanded by 6.3% in June last fiscal. In May this year, the growth was 5%. The year-on-year growth in June this fiscal was the lowest since July, 2009-10 when it expanded by only 3.2%.

For the month under review, growth in coal and cement production dipped by 0.9% and 3.6%, respectively over 15.2% and 12.7% in June 2009-10. Increase in electricity generation came down to 3.4% against 7.7% in the same period last year.