| India's steel majors repaid Rs 8,000 crore to financial institutions (FIs), banks and foreign lenders in 2003-2004. They still have to repay debt of over Rs 20,000 crore. |
| The state-owned Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL) repaid Rs 4,500 crore. Private steel companies like Essar Steel and Jindal Iron & Steel Company also significantly reduced their debt burden by almost Rs 1,900 crore and Rs 1,200 crore, respectively. |
| Tata Steel, the most profitable steel company, too brought down its outstanding debt by around Rs 400 crore, senior company executives said. |
| Steel prices during the year moved up by almost 60-70 per cent since March 2003. |
| A SAIL spokesman told Business Standard: "The firming up of steel prices definitely augmented the company's resources. This enabled us to pay off such a significant amount of debt in a single year." |
| The company's outstanding debt on March 31, 2004 was around Rs 8,500 crore, with a debt-equity ratio of a little over 2:1, he said. The interest outgo also came down by around Rs 400 crore in 2003-2004. SAIL repaid only around Rs 1,000 crore of its debt in 2002-2003. |
| Essar Steel and Jindal Iron & Steel repaid loans in line with their corporate debt restructuring plan. |
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