National Steel Policy Aims to Make Indian Steel Industries Globally Competitive

The Minister of Steel and Mines Shri Narendra Singh Tomar in a statement laid on the Table of the Rajya Sabha today informed the House that India is the 3rd largest crude steel producer in the world in 2015 as per provisional rankings released by the World Steel Association (WSA). As per data released by JPC, India’s crude steel production capacity is 109.85 million tonnes in 2014-15 and at 116.74 million tonnes in April-December, 2015-16 (provisional). There has been a growth of 6.5% of Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) in steel production capacity in the country during from the years 2012-13 to 2014-15 and the trend is likely to be continued during the year 2015-16 and increase thereafter.

In a liberalised and de-regulated economy, the Government’s role is that of a facilitator. As a facilitator, the Government lays down the policy guidelines and establishes institutional mechanism and structure for creating conducive environment for fostering growth in the domestic industry and making it globally competent. The National Steel Policy 2005 lays down broad roadmap for encouraging growth for the Indian steel industry, on both the supply and the demand sides. The long-term goal of the National Steel Policy 2005 is that India should have a modern and efficient steel industry of world standards, catering to diversified steel demand. The focus is, therefore, to achieve global competitiveness. Steel is a de-regulated sector in which investment decision and allocation of funds are made by the investors based on commercial and market considerations and government funds are not allocated for this purpose.

Jharkhand is an important steel producing state and will continue to show strong growth in this sector in the future. SAIL has a proposal of investing more than Rs.19,000 crore in Jharkhand on modernization of Bokaro Steel Plant, expansion of Gua and Chiria mines etc. Further, Government of India, NMDC (a Central Public Sector Enterprise under Ministry of Steel) and Government of Jharkhand have also signed an Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to set up a 3 Million Ton Per Annum (MTPA) green field steel plant through a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) in Jharkhand at an estimated cost of Rs 18,000 crore.