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Infrastructure Sectors like Coal, Petroleum, Freight traffic in Railways, Cargo handling in Shipping etc. registered noteworthy performance and crossed their targets for the period April 2004 – February 2005. Revealing this, the latest Review Report of the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation on Infrastructure Sector performance during the period, however expressed concern over performance of certain sectors like Finished Steel, Net telephony in Telecom, Fertilizer and Cement for not achieving the target. Production of Finished Steel and Fertilizers were much below the target level.
Among the Sectors, which crossed the target, Petroleum achieved 3.9 per cent more i.e. 4.38 million tonnes higher in Refinery Production and 2 per cent more i.e. 0.619 million tonnes higher in crude oil production. Both, revenue earning freight traffic in Railways and Cargo handling at major ports in Shipping, crossed the target by 3 per cent i.e. 15.97 million tonnes in Rail freight and 10.014 million tonnes in Cargo Shipping. Coal production was also nearly 3 per cent above target i.e. 8.99 million tonnes more.
The over all Coal production during the period was 335.95 million tonnes, 5.6 per cent higher than the production during the corresponding period of the previous year. The over all revenue earning freight traffic carried by the Railways during the period totalled 541.97 million tonnes, a 7.6 per cent growth over the previous period. Major ports in the country handled 344.64 million tonnes of Cargo, recording a growth of nearly 11 per cent.
Refinery production in the Petroleum Sector during the 11 months of the last fiscal, amounted to 116.22 million tonnes, a growth of 5 per cent compared with the previous period. Crude oil also registered a growth of nearly 2 per cent with the over all production being to 31.06 million tonnes. However, production of natural gas was 1.7 per cent lesser compared to the previous year, with the total production being 28,946 million cubic meters. But natural gas managed to achieve the target.
Production of Finished Steel during the 11 month period totalled 36.08 million tonnes, though 10.2 per cent less than the target but compared with the previous year, it recorded a growth of 3.2 per cent.
In Telecom, though switching capacity addition and new cell-phone connections have been rising phenomenally, the area of landline connections i.e. net telephony remained a concern, the Report said.
The overall production of Fertilizer during the period was 14.18 million tonnes, though less than the target but was nearly 7 per cent higher than the production during the previous year. Cement production was also lower than the target at 119.03 million tonnes but it represented a growth of 6.5 per cent compared with the production of the previous period.
VKS/SR
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