Union Minister of State for Steel Vishnudeo Sai has assured domestic steel industry of every support from government to safeguard its interests and to help it grow exponentially in years to come. He claimed that the domestic steel industry was capable enough to meet its expected target of collective steel production capacity to 300 Million Ton Per Annum (MTPA) by 2030-31, once domestic consumption hurdles were removed properly.
“Government is ready to support domestic steel industry in every manner to take its cumulative production capacity to 300 MTPA by 2030. However, per capita domestic steel consumption at 61 Kg is much lower than the per capita International steel consumption of around 208 Kg as of now. This is a serious area of concern and we will have to take collective efforts to combat challenge of increasing domestic consumption,” said Sai as Chief Guest of a two-day combined 30th National Convention of Metallurgical and Materials, and National Seminar on Challenges and Opportunities to Produce 300MTPA Steel by 2030 .’
The joint seminar which concludes on Sunday is being organised by the Jharkhand State Centre (JSC) of The Institution of Engineers India (IEI) and Supported by MECON limited. MECON limited GM (R&D and PD) S Chatterjee said in his welcome address that other than low domestic consumption, the industry was also facing challenges like low grade minerals and high degree of capital expenditure so far.
The combines Seminar saw over 200 experts and delegates from country and overseas gathered in the city to discuss anything and everything about domestic and international steel industry in two-days. Other than Sai and Chatterjee, JSC Chairman of IEI Sanjay Sen, IEI Metallurgical and Materials Engineering Division Chairman NR Bandyopadhyay, MECON CMD Atul Bhatt, Director (Technology) PK Sarangi and Director (Projects) S Chattopadhyay, SAIl Director (Projects and Business Planning) G Vishwakarma, Organising Secretary of the event SK Day and many other experts also put their perspective about topics ranging from domestic production to comparison with China and others.
The Minister also pointed out steps taken by the government to protect interests of the industry, which employed some 25 lakh manpower and for production capacity of little over 120 MTPA. He mentioned that the government imposed import duties of up to 20% on some hot-rolled flat steel products in September 2015, and set a floor price in February 2016 for steel product imports.
Bhatt said on the occasion that MECON remained associated with more than 50 percent of steel projects in many ways, and was helping industry grow manifold from sometime now. He said that the company was determined to come up with new solutions for the industry.
Sai also said that the Steel Ministry proposed setting up greenfield steel plants along India’s coastline as part of the new draft National Steel Policy of 2017. The policy envisages India’s domestic steel production capacity to be taken to 300 MTPA by 2030-31.