India beats Japan to become world’s second largest steel producer -Governance Now

India beats Japan to become world’s second largest steel producer

Steel minister lays emphasis on the need of safety in the production of iron and steel

GN Bureau | January 29, 2019

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Steel minister Chaudhary Birender Singh has India has become the second largest producer of steel in the world leaving behind Japan and the USA.

He said when comparing the country’s per capita consumption of steel vis-a-vis the world consumption level which is 214 kg per capita, India has a long way to go. He said before 2014, India’s per capita consumption of steel stood at 57 kg which has now increased to 69 kg per capita.

Singh was chairing the parliamentary consultative committee meeting in Goa recently.

He laid emphasised on the need of safety in the production of iron and steel. The minister recognised the need to prevent injuries and accidents and for providing a healthy working environment and mitigating hazards and risks, he has decided to set up a safety directorate to oversee safety standards in the steel industry. It will be made functional soon. Singh said both the SAIL and the Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (RINL) have comprehensive safety policies.

On the issue of mining, the steel minister said by 2020, large number of the mining leases will expire, which the ministry has taken cognizance of and is taking measures to tackle it. The mining activity of Orissa Minerals Development Company Limited (OMDC), a CPSE of steel ministry, is shut for the past few years and efforts are also on to make OMDC mine operational.

The minister said the National Steel Policy 2017 envisages steel capacity of 300 million tonne (MT) which will be affected if mining activities are not smooth. He also said besides the existing mines, there is a need to focus on exploration of new mines.

He said along with National Steel Policy formulated in 2017, the policy for domestically manufactured iron and steel products has also been finalised to give preference to domestically produced steel. This has given impetus to the Make in India initiative and has also led to savings of around Rs 8,000 crore.

He further said the National Scrap Policy is also being formulated which will be ready in a few months. This will make available nearly 7 MT scrap in the country. Presently the requirement of scrap is around 8.3 MT and most of it is met with scrap imports. He said that steel produced out of scrap is of good quality and is environment friendly.

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