New Delhi, Sep 30 (IANS): A demand rebound, along with waning impact of Covid 2.0, accelerated the output of India's eight major industries in August on a sequential as well as year-on-year basis.

The Index of Eight Core Industries (ICI) readings for the last month showed an expansion of 11.6 per cent from a decline of 6.9 per cent in output during the same month of the previous year.

On a sequential basis, the core industrial growth during July stood at 9.9 per cent.

The ICI index comprises 40.27 per cent of the weight of items included in the Index of Industrial Production (IIP), and these industries comprise coal, crude oil, natural gas, refinery products, fertilisers, steel, cement, and electricity.

"The combined Index of Eight Core Industries stood at 133.5 in August 2021, which increased by 11.6 per cent (provisional) as compared to the index of August 2020," a Ministry of Commerce and Industry statement said.

"The production of coal, natural gas, refinery products, steel, cement, and electricity industries increased in August 2021 over the corresponding period of last year."

As per the statement, final growth rate of the ICI for May 2021 has been revised to 16.4 per cent from its provisional level of 16.8 per cent.

"The growth rate of ICI during April-August 2021-22 was 19.3 per cent (P) as compared to the corresponding period of last FY."

On a sector-specific basis, the output of coal, which has a weightage of 10.33 per cent in the index, showed a growth of 20.6 per cent in August 2021 over the same month of the previous year.

Similarly, the output of refinery products, which has the highest weightage of 28.04 per cent, rose by 9.1 per cent, compared to the corresponding month of the last fiscal.

Electricity generation, which has the second highest weightage of 19.85 per cent, rose by 15.3 per cent, whereas steel production was up 5.1 per cent last month.

However, the extraction of crude oil, which has a weightage of 8.98 per cent, declined by 2.3 per cent during the month under consideration, though the sub-index for natural gas output, with a weightage of 6.88 per cent, rose by 20.6 per cent.

Cement production, which has a weightage of 5.37 per cent, rose by 36.3 per cent in the month under review.

Fertiliser manufacturing, which has the least weightage -- only 2.63 per cent -- declined by3.1 per cent.