First Press Release of Index of Core Industries of New Series with Base Year 2022-23

📌 Summary:

• The Office of Economic Adviser (OEA), DPIIT has released the revised Index of Core Industries (ICI) with Base Year 2022-23, replacing the old 2011-12 base series, which is now discontinued

• Number of core industries increased from EIGHT to NINE — Iron Ore has been added as a new item, owing to its intensive use in production and contribution to industrial development

• Methodological changes: (a) Steel index now uses GROSS production data instead of net, to align with the IIP (2022-23) series; (b) only Raw Coal retained — Coal Middling and Washed Coal excluded to remove double counting, since both are derived from raw coal

• ICI weights are derived from the corresponding item weights of the IIP (2022-23) series, pro-rata distributed to 100

• Linking Factor between old (2011-12) and new (2022-23) series = 1.47, computed as the ratio of the geometric mean of monthly old-series ICI for 2022-23 to that of the new series

• Back series of the new ICI is available from April 2023 onward on the OEA web portal

• Release schedule: provisional index for a reference month released on the 20th of the following month (or next working day); July 2026 index due on 20 August 2026

• June 2026 data (Provisional): ICI grew 5.0% year-on-year, up from 3.2% in May 2026 (Final Estimate)

• Sector performance in June 2026 — POSITIVE: Iron Ore 43.9%, Electricity 9.8%, Cement 9.8%, Steel 4.6%, Coal 1.4%; NEGATIVE: Natural Gas, Crude Oil, Refinery Products, Fertilizers

• Iron Ore and Electricity have been the major drivers of overall ICI growth in recent months

• Cumulative growth April-June 2026: 3.6% (Provisional) versus 1.0% in the corresponding period of the previous year

🎯 UPSC Relevance: GS3 (Indian Economy — industrial policy, growth measurement). Base-year revisions of ICI/IIP/CPI are a recurring theme; understanding what the core industries are, why base years are rebased, and how the linking factor works is directly examinable.

📝 Prelims Facts:

• ICI is compiled and released by the Office of Economic Adviser (OEA), DPIIT, Ministry of Commerce & Industry — monthly

• New base year 2022-23; old base year 2011-12 discontinued

• Core industries now NINE: Coal, Crude Oil, Natural Gas, Refinery Products, Fertilizers, Steel, Cement, Electricity + Iron Ore (newly added)

• Overall Linking Factor between the two series = 1.47

• ICI growth June 2026 = 5.0% (P); May 2026 = 3.2% (F); Apr-Jun 2026 cumulative = 3.6%

• ICI weights are derived from IIP (2022-23) item weights, pro-rata to 100

🔑 Key Term: Linking Factor — the multiplier used to make an old-base index series comparable with a new-base series; here computed as the geometric mean of the old-series monthly index for the overlap year divided by the geometric mean of the new-series monthly index for the same year (= 1.47 for overall ICI).