The government will revise the capacity addition target of steel companies by 2012 after a meeting with private sector producers such as Tata Steel, JSW and Essar shortly, Parliament was informed today.
"A meeting with major private steel producers will be held shortly in the Ministry of Steel, to review the current status of major private sector projects.... The revised projection, on year-wise basis, will be furnished by the ministry after a fresh review and further assessment," Minister of State for Steel A Sai Prathap said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha.
The steel ministry is already monitoring the growth projects of its PSUs like SAIL and RINL. It also occasionally holds meetings with private producers to assess their needs.
"During 2008, based on the progress achieved by the steel investment projects and based on the projections furnished by the companies, the steel production capacity was projected as 124 million tonnes (by 2012). However, on account of factors such as, global economic slowdown in later part of 2008, delay in land acquisitions, allocation of raw material resources, law and order problems etc, there has been some delay in the progress of certain projects," he added.
To a separate question, the minister said India has an annual steel production capacity of 72.76 million tonnes.
The government has set a target of 124 million tonnes per annum production by 2011-12.
Of the targeted 124 MTPA capacity, state-run firms like SAIL, RINL and NMDC would contribute about 40 million tonnes.
Steel Minister Virbhadra Singh had earlier said that projected production capacity by 2012 had been lowered to 120 million tonnes.
It may be recalled that mega projects of steel giants like ArcelorMittal and Posco in the county have failed to kickstart for over four years now on account of many bottlenecks like land acquisitions, allocation of raw material resources, law and order problems etc.
Among domestic private producers, Tata Steel is enhancing the annual production capacity of its Jamshedpur plant to 10 million tonnes by 2011 from the present 6.8 million tonnes.
JSW Steel is also increasing the capacity of its plant in Vijaynagar, Karnataka, to about 10 million tonnes from the present about 7 million tonnes by next year.
