INFRASTRUCTURE

• Overall power generation grew by 3.7%, which has higher than the 2.8% growth seen in the preceding year. This was led by growth in thermal and nuclear generation, which grew by 6.1%. Hydel generation fared badly, owing to the deficient monsoon.
  
  
• Freight traffic carried by the railways grew by 6.5%, compared with the growth of 2.7% in the same period last year.
  
  
• Cargo traffic at major ports grew by 8.7%. The highlights of this were strong growth in handling of foodgrains(187%) and container traffic(19.2%).
  
  
• Passenger traffic at domestic and international terminals grew by 8.8 and 7.45 respectively. However, cargo handled fared well, with growth rates of 13.9% for exports and 20.3% for imports.
  
  
• In the area of telecom, the number of new connections grew by 17%, as compared with decline(-24%) in the previous year. Prices for long distance telephony and cellular phone services have fallen sharply.
  
  
• In the road sector, 4,064 kilometers of national highways were upgraded/strengthened during April-December 2002, an improvement of 99.7% when compared with the previous year.
  
  
• The six core indistries (i.e electrcity, crude oil, petroleum products, coal, steel and cement), which are key inputs to infrastructure sector, and have a weight of 26.7% in the overall Index of Industrial Production (IIP), registered a groth of 5.4% as compared to 2.5% during the corresponding period of last fiscal. Of these, cement ans steel with a combined weight of 7.1% in the IIP, registered a growth of 9.7% and 8.1 % respectively.