New Delhi: The Union Minister of Steel Chaudhary Birender Singh Chaired a meeting of the Parliamentary Consultative Committee attached to @SteelMinIndia in New Delhi today on “initiatives taken by the Steel Ministry to enhance demand and production of steel’’ in the country and “status of completion of projects by PSUs’’. The Minister of State in the Ministry of Steel Shri Vishnu Deo Sai and the Secretary Steel Dr. Aruna Sharma were also present on the occasion.
In his opening remarks, the Steel Minister @ChBirenderSingh extended a warm welcome to the Members of Parliament to the first meeting of 2017. He said that the Steel Ministry with their support and cooperation has been able to hold three fruitful meetings in a short span of six months. The suggestions and feedback of the members have been helpful in formulating and finalizing roadmap for the steel industry in India, as discussed in the first meeting held in August 2016. India is likely to be net exporter of steel in this financial year. This has been made possible due to a level playing field provided to the industry by the Government of India through regular policy interventions as and when required.
The Steel Minister elaborated that his Ministry is keeping a constant watch on the fast-changing scenario in Indian and international steel industry and has taken appropriate decisions in consultation with other Ministries to provide a conducive growth environment for Indian steel industry.
Chaudhary Birender Singh said that the draft National Steel Policy has been prepared by Ministry of Steel after detailed deliberations and it has been uploaded on the website of Ministry of Steel last week, for seeking comments and suggestions from different stakeholders. The draft policy envisions that the Indian steel sector follows a sustainable path of development and increases steel production capacity to 300 million tonnes per annum by 2030-31. Our capacity in 2015-16 was 122 million tonnes. The draft policy outlines strategy for leveraging strengths and overcoming weaknesses of Indian steel industry. The policy aims to increase per capita steel consumption in India to 160 kilogram by 2030-31 from the present level of 61 kilogram. Several new initiatives have been taken for this purpose. These initiatives include:
The Ministry of Steel have constituted four committees with representatives from INSDAG, steel producers, consultants, architects, users and government authorities to promote steel usage. The mandates for these committees are formulation of codes and standards, life cycle cost analysis and sustainability, development of designs of various utility structures and skill development in steel sector. Similarly, four task forces have been constituted for increasing steel usage in Railways, Urban development, Road Transport and Highways and Shipbuilding sector.
Rural housing targets to achieve one crore dwelling units in the next three years. Usage of steel-based structures can provide huge impetus to the demand of steel. Steel Ministry is approaching concerned authorities to share advantages of steel houses like less erection time, more durability, better flexibility and eco-friendliness. Presentations with prototype designs have been made to key officials of rural development ministry.
Reconstruction of 1500 road bridges, 208 over bridges, Chardham highway project provide huge opportunity for enhancing steel usage. Ministry and PSUs are working on these opportunities as also in sectors like Railways, Defence and other manufacturing industries.
SAIL, MECON and INSDAG are in the process of standardising design of steel intensive building and bridges, which will be used to promote adoption of steel intensive structures.
The Steel Minister informed the members that only last month we started brand promotion through inaugural run of the Vizag Steel Samta Express at Nizamuddin Station. SAIL has also started its advertisement campaign. Ministry has engaged a social media agency for reaching out to people using the new media. These brand-marketing activities will intensify and increase as we go forward.
The Ministry had invited suggestions on increasing steel consumption from the general public on Mygov platform. Many quality suggestions have been received pertaining to rural development, industrial development and agriculture. For example, one innovative suggestion is that truck and trailer bodies should be made from steel, not wood, to save trees. Another is covering potholes with steel sheets. The steel ministry is working on these and other such crowdsourced ideas. Later this week, on 21st January, we are organising the first meeting of Steel Consumer Council in 2017 where valuable actionable inputs and outputs will come out of the meeting.
The Steel Minister informed the members that the talks are going on with concerned ministries for introduction of policy to make it mandatory to use Indian made steel for all infrastructure and construction projects of the government. Likewise, we are also trying that GFR guidelines are modified to include life cycle cost analysis in design and planning stage in public projects. We are exploring new avenues for usage of steel like steel bridges, containers, water tanks and crash barriers and so on. We have spoken to different central and state governments to enhance usage of steel. Many steps were taken by Government of India in last few months, to provide a level playing field to Indian steel producers. We have curbed the unfair trade practices and dumping that other countries were resorting to. Imports have been reduced substantially by a combination of tariff and non-tariff measures.
Domestic production of Steel increased by 10.5 per cent in April to December 2016, compared to the corresponding period last year. Moreover, this momentum will be sustained through a multi pronged strategy in the coming months and years. A lot has been done by government of India to ease raw material availability. Mining reforms are best example of a fair, transparent and fast resource allocation policy. Ministry of steel is working on several fronts to increase coking coal availability in the country. This includes import duty reduction, more washeries, more production from Coal India and discouraging use of coking coal in power plants. Same is the case with other raw materials like iron ore, nickel, pellets and steel scrap. We are working on policy interventions and other strategic initiatives to enhance their availability.
The Steel Minister Chaudhary Birender Singh said his ministry would explore the possibility of setting up scrap-based steel plants in Northern India and Western India. These plants will be energy efficient, eco-friendly, cost-effective and with capacity to produce high quality steel. This is in addition to Greenfield production capacity being planned through Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) route, foreign tie-ups and brownfield expansion in existing public and private sector steel plants. We are trying to develop indigenous capability to produce value added steels that are imported like CRGO steel and auto-grade steels. In last two years, we have added over 15 million tonnes steel production capacity in the country. We are trying to remove bottlenecks that could hamper efforts to increase steel production. Inter-ministerial interventions are being made to reduce the logistics costs through reduction in rail freights and to improve raw material transportation by approval for laying of slurry pipelines. Therefore, we are confident that 300 million tonnes steel production target is achievable with the support and cooperation of the Members of the Parliament.
As for the status of modernization and expansion projects, RINL has increased its capacity to 6.3 million tonnes per annum successfully. The company is setting up a Forged Wheel Plant at Lalganj in UP, which is scheduled to be completed by 2018.
In SAIL, Bhilai Steel Plant expansion is yet to be fully completed, though it is in advanced stage. The situation is being monitored on a regular basis. NMDC is setting up a 3 million tonnes per annum capacity steel plant in Nagarnar, Chhattisgarh. This is also in advanced stage of completion. The company is also working on a Slurry pipeline and pellet plant project, which is likely to be completed by 2020.
The Members gave valuable suggestions on the Agenda for discussion in the meeting, on “initiatives taken by Ministry of Steel to enhance demand and production of Steel” and “status of completion of projects by PSUs”.
The meeting was attended by the following Members of Parliament:
Members of Lok Sabha included Shri Bidyut Baran Mahato, BJP, Jamshedpur (Bihar); Shri Bodh Singh Bhagat, BJP, Balaghat (MP); Shri Dinesh Kashyap, BJP, Bastar (Chhatisgarh); Shri Janardan Singh Sigriwal, BJP, Maharajganj (Bihar); Shri Laxman Giluwa, BJP, Singhbhum (Jharkhand); Dr. Anupam Hazra, All India Trinamool Congress, Bolpur (West Bengal) ; Shri M. Chandrakasi, All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, Chidambaram (Tamil Nadu) and Members of Rajya Sabha included Shri Tapan Kumar Sen, CPI(M), West Bengal.
