By 121 News
Chandigarh 22nd July:- Our Government is fully committed to address every problem and bottleneck of the ailing steel industry and achieve the target of production of 300 Million Tonne Per Annum (mtpa) by 2025. To attain this target, we have set up a "Steel Research & Technology Mission of India" (SRTMI) along with industry to promote collaborative research programmes in steel sector so as to enhance their competitiveness, quality, R&D and production capacities. SRTMI will be steel industry's contribution to 'Make in India, Made in India' initiative", shared by Narendra Singh Tomar, Union Minister for Steel while addressing senior industrialists and Govt officials at two day Steel Mart organised by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) to drive Make in India in Steel at CII NR Headquarters in sector 31 A, here today.
Narendra Singh Tomar further emphaissed that to bring down costs of steel manufacturers, there is a need to bring down the interest rates, debt and transportation costs for steel industry. Proper rail connectivity of ports with raw material sites and steel plants, especially across north is highly imperative as well, to bring down the logistics costs and save time. He added that there is a critical and urgent need to promote and spread awareness about more and more usage of steel, especially in rural areas so as to boost its demand and hence to save the ailing steel industry which is the backbone of all other industries. Presently India's per capita usage is just 59 kg as compared to 700 kg of China and World average of 215 kg. Both industry and Govt need to work aggressively together to increase this demand.
He said that we have also planned Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) with four iron ore rich states i.e Karnataka, Jharkhand, Orissa, Chhattisgarh and would soon set up plants to produce 3 mtpa of steel initially, which would touch 6mtpa very soon, adding 24 mtpa to the national production levels. He informed that the modernisation of SAIL with an investment of Rs 70, 000 crore has been completed. This would enhance the production capacity to 23 mtpa from present levels of 13 mtpa by January 2016. We have also planned to invest another 125 lakh crore for next phase of expansion to achieve the target of 50 mtpa from SAIL alone. Further, SAIL has entered into an MoU with railways worth Rs 2000 crore for a 240 km rail link from Raipur to Jagdalpur, which is rich in iron ore.
S S Mohanty, Chairman, CII Steel Mart 2015 & Director – Technical, Steel Authority of India Ltd. Said that the sector is in real dearth of investments both Govt and private. It is estimated that there would be a need of funds to the tune of Rs 90,000 crore to meet the additional requirement of 15 Million Tonne of steel in the next three years due to mass urbanisation and boost to infrastructure and manufacturing. Further, around 4 Mtpa of raw material is consumed to produce 1 Mtpa of steel, highlighting the kind of working capital constraints.
Shreekant Somany, Chairman, CII Northern Region & Chairman & Managing Director, Somany Ceramics Ltd shared that through CII Steel Mart 2015 our endeavour is to create a platform for both steel producers and consumers to interact and examine in detail the current and future dynamics of steel industry in India as also to chalk out a focused action plan for aligning the interests of North India's Steel industry viz-a-viz global markets.
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