Steel industry stares at a speed bump with inadequate rail and road infra

Industry is worried inadequate rail and road infra will not allow to swiftly despatch finished products to consumption centres or receive raw material from mines once new capacity comes on stream

With 12 years to go, even the incorrigible optimists will find it difficult to believe that the country’s steel capacity could be raised to 300 million tonnes (mt) from the present around 130 mt. Because of mainly land acquisition issues, it took Tata Steel a decade to commission the 3 mt greenfield steel mill at Kalinganagar in Odisha. Even with a huge land bank at its disposal that could easily accommodate capacity in excess of 50 mt, Steel Authority of India Limited is taking almost a decade to complete its Rs 720 billion modernisation and expansion programme this year. 
 

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