Minister calls for increase in steel usage for infra projects

Union Minister of Steel Chaudhary Birender Singh today said he has urged all the ministries concerned to increase the usage of steel in government's infrastructure and construction projects.
"The Steel Ministry is exploring new avenues for usage of steel like steel bridges, containers, water tanks and crash barriers. Recently, I have also urged all concerned ministries to use India-made steel for government projects," Singh said here.
He was speaking at the first meeting of the National Steel Consumers' Council here. The council advises government on matters relating to supply, availability, quality and the market trends of iron and steel.
The meeting was attended by representatives of various ministries, several industry associations, producers and consumers of iron & steel industry, house builders and related industries, industry experts and steel makers, including SAIL, RINL and Tata Steel etc.

This meeting provided a platform to discuss the domestic steel industry scenario, the global steel trends, and benefits of using steel and on how to boost the domestic steel consumption. India has become the third largest steel producer in the world, while the domestic steel consumption remains at only 60 kgs per capita.
There has been continued thrust from the Ministry of Steel to boost the domestic steel consumption by exploring the versatile steel uses.

"The ministry has sought reduction in import duty on both coking coal and nickel -- vital components of steel making -- a move that may revive the sector in the forthcoming Union Budget," Singh said.

He also said that his ministry has prepared the draft policy-- the National Steel Policy (NSP) 2017-- to ensure that the sector follows a sustainable path of development in respect of augmenting capacity to 300 MT by 2030-31 in environment-friendly manner, mineral conservation, quality of steel products, use of technology and indigenous R&D efforts, so that the country can, over time, reach the global efficiency benchmarks.
The National Steel Policy 2017 (NSP 2017) is an effort to steer the industry to achieve its future potential and strategy to deal with various impediments like high input cost, availability of raw materials, dependency on imports and financial stress.