AP Choudhary, CMD of Rashtriya Ispat Nigam (RINL) informed that government plans to raise India’s global ranking in steel production to second from the present fourth position by 2020.
India currently produces 71 million tonne (mn t) of steel per annum and is placed at the fourth position, China occupies the first position with over 600 mn t per annum output. It will be a creditable achievement for India to get into the second slot, even though there will still be a vast gulf separating the first and the second, Choudhary said.
Shortage of raw material and lack of infrastructure for production and consumption of the steel in the domestic market as well as for exports are some of the issues facing the sector, he said.
Competitiveness is the key as new capacities are being He said the Union Government had a target that by 2020 India should reach the second position after China in steel production.
He said India was in a position to produce special steels required for sectors such as ship-building and the country is inferior to none in technologies.
But he stressed on the need to spend more on R&D for more eco-friendly technologies of steel manufacture. He said the growth of manufacturing sector was not taking place in Andhra Pradesh for the past four years and also not many industrial units (small and medium ones) were coming up in the vicinity of RINL.
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