State-owned SAIL must increase output of special steel and value added products to cater to the needs of industries, Union Steel Minister Chaudhary Birender Singh said Friday.
"SAIL has always contributed to signature projects like Statue of Unity, DholaSadiya Bridge and the recently inaugurated Bogibeel bridge. Times are changing and demand for special steel, value added products and high-end steel is growing and SAIL needs to ramp up the production of such steel," Singh said on the sidelines of an event of the maharatna firm.
The government has fixed a target to ramp-up the country's crude steel production to 300 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) by 2030 -- from about 138 MTPA at the end of March 2018.
Steel Authority of India (SAIL) Chairman Anil Kumar Chaudhary said that by 2030, the PSU aims to ramp-up production capacity to 50 MT from about 21.4 MT at present.
The minister said that while increasing the production capacity, the PSU should also focus on production of special steel and value added products.
Steel sector is considered very important for the overall economic health of the country, given its use in a number of key industries like automobile, process plants, capital goods and defence equipments.
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SAIL needs to ramp-up the production of rails as Railways has floated a global tender for it, Singh said.
India has become number two in the world in terms of steel output and now the aim should be to become leader in quality steel, he added.