India’s steel and petroleum minister, Dharmendra Pradhan, on Feb 17 urged the Indian steel industry to meet domestic demand through indigenisation. The minister spoke of a zero-import steel model for the country, emphasising the importance of the Steel Import Monitoring System (Sims) to monitor imports.
The zero-import model the minister referenced is a move to boost domestic special steel production to meet requirements.
Pradhan, however, did not offer any concrete plan of how Indian mills could meet domestic requirements.
Steel demand is likely to increase in the near future, the minster pointed out, on the back of an Indian Railways’ decongestion plan and concentrated focus on 58 national super-critical projects.
In 2019, the Indian Railways consumed 7mn mt of steel, a rise of 17pc from the prior year.
In addition, dedicated freight corridor projects are likely to consume 17mn mt of steel in the next five years.
A workshop – ‘Indian Steel: Fostering Steel Usage in Railways & Defence Sectors’ – was organised by the Ministry of Steel in association with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), to promote domestic steel usage in the Railways and Defence sectors.
The workshop discussed how the Indian defence forces along with the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), and the Ordinance Factory, are in sustained need of steel alloy supply.