Make in India in machinery may get leg up from ambitious steel output plan

The domestic steel industry's success depends on a robust supply of locally manufactured machinery and spare parts that the country lacks

Ideally, India should have focused on developing a robust indigenous steelmaking plant and equipment manufacturing base much earlier since it was known for long that the country would require growing quantities of the metal for infrastructure projects and the rapidly growing automobile industry. 

But this deficiency in capital goods manufacturing and also in know-how and engineering is not restricted to the steel industry alone. The highly mature Indian aluminium smelting industry with capacity exceeding 4 million tonnes (mt), too, either turns to Alca-owned Aluminium Pechiney or Gami of China to handhold it for technology and procurement of machinery from foreign companies.