Digitisation plays a key role in steel sector: Top official -Governance Now

Digitisation plays a key role in steel sector: Top official

Automation contributes to better management principles, production, enables management of raw materials and marketing and response to feedback

Pratap Vikram Singh | March 1, 2017 | New Delhi

#Aruna Sharma #steel ministry #Governance Now #Digital transformation summit #MSTC #metal junction

Digitisation plays a great role in the steel sector. It covers the entire process: from production cycle, product sizing, place of manufacturing, to supply to the market, said Aruna Sharma, secretary, ministry of steel at the Digital Transformation Summit 2017 organised by Governance Now.

Now digitisation has been linked to finances, Sharma said.

She underlined the significance of GPS in mining . “You can find where the raw material is lying, whether it is at the port and how much are you producing, using GPS,” she said.

In the steel sector, the entire auction process related to the mines has been automated. “E-auction solution is being provided by Metal Scrap Trading Corporation and Metal junction. The automation contributes to better management principles, production, enables management of raw materials and marketing and response to feedback.”

“If we are able to link the exports and imports related information, it will go a long way in import replacement. That’s exactly what the ministry is trying to do,” she said.

Sharma said 57 percent of the steel in India is made by the secondary sector, small and medium enterprises. It is important to maintain the ratio in coming years when the manufacturing is going to increase three-fold.

“We are also promoting the use of steel in bridges, buildings. The project monitoring will be digitised. It will also help in managing structural issues, the contractors, management and comparative cost of quantitative material,” she said.

When demonetization took place, the steel sector was impacted briefly. “What is surprising is that whole sector shifted to cashless — steel manufacturers went 100 percent cashless,” she said.

The dealers were very uncomfortable for 15 days because their business models were not based on fair accounting practices. “But when they realised this is how it is going to be in the future, they adopted it and there has been a big change since then. It led to savings for the dealers. The number of accountant they needed was reduced to one fifth.”

“If you look at the sector, we work in many remote villages. We do mining in remotest part. We have taken a challenge to shift these villages to cashless,” she said.

Beside, she said, it is important to aggregate the digitisation and automation initiatives and link the finance, supply material, product material, so that ministry is able to get the data on real-time basis of profit and loss in the sector.

Comments

Other News

BRICS at 20: From economic weight to global influence

This year marks 20 years of BRICS, with India set to host the grouping’s leaders’ summit this weekend. The anniversary offers an opportune moment to assess BRICS’ growing importance at a time when the effectiveness of global governance and the credibility of multilateralism are under in

Former president Ram Nath Kovind on some of his unforgettable journeys

Triumph of the Indian Republic: My Life, My Struggles By Ram Nath Kovind Rupa Publications, 400 pages, Rs 795 All our presidents so far stand out, each for a different reason. Ram Nath Kovind, the 14th president of India, from 2017 t

Uday Kotak on history, Indian economy, growth and more

Pathbreakers: How 10 Visionary Leaders Transformed India by award-winning journalists By Sucheta Dalal and Debashis Basu Rupa Publications, 304 pages, Rs 695

₹5,000 crore saved from suspected financial fraud

In a significant gain for citizen protection in the digital economy, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has helped prevent suspected cyber fraud losses of more than ₹5,000 crore through its Financial Fraud Risk Indicator (FRI) within fifteen months of its launch on May 22, 2025. This money did

Capital acquisition proposals worth Rs 1.10 lakh crore for defence forces cleared

The Defence Acquisition Council (DAC), under the chairmanship of Raksha Mantri Rajnath Singh, on Monday accorded Acceptance of Necessity (AoN), that is, in-principle administrative approval to various acquisition proposals of the defence forces at an estimated cost of about Rs 1,10,000 crore.

How Rafi, Raj Kapoor helped pave the way for a great uranium deal

There`s a certain moment in diplomacy that`s too personal to be captured in a communiqué, too small to make the front page, but more revealing than the front page. This week, prime minister Narendra Modi reached Tashkent and, amid the pomp of state visits, managed to evoke the old Bollywood tunes