Steel authority of India (SAIL) chairman PK Singh expressed confidence on improving the performance of the Maharatna PSU in the current fiscal because of a host of initiatives in almost every area of operations.

During 45th annual general meeting of the company, Singh said the world steel association, in its short range outlook has a forecast of 6.1 percent growth in steel consumption for India in 2017. “SAIL with modern technologies at its disposal aims to leverage potential of growth in steel demand by operating at rated capacities, product differentiation and customer satisfaction. Since its inception, the SAIL has produced 475 million tonnes (MT) of crude steel and is involved in all major national projects requiring steel,” he said.

SAIL has done significant value addition in its product mix, with higher grades of steel from Rourkela Steel Plant’s new plate mill for the oil and gas sector, SAIL HT-600 product for the automotive sector and high strength LPG steel grade from Bokaro steel plant. Continuous product development efforts are being made with intensive research and development efforts especially from the new mills commissioned.

He further said India is poised to become the world's fifth largest economy in 2017, surpassing UK and France and the world's third largest economy by 2023, surpassing Japan and Germany. India’s GDP is projected to rise from USD 2.2 trillion in 2016 to USD 3.6 trillion by 2020. This augurs well for businesses that are focused on domestic growth in the future.