The Hindu Business Line : SAIL to invest Rs 10,000 cr in IISCO upgrade

Steel Authority of India (SAIL) has plans to invest about Rs 10,000 crore to expand and modernise production capacity of IISCO, which was merged with SAIL early this year following a decision by the Union Cabinet in June 2005 that a merger was the only way left to revive the ailing steel company at Burnpur in West Bengal.

The SAIL Chairman, Mr S.K. Roongta, said here on Tuesday that a close look would also be taken at the marketing problems of the Alloy Steel Plant at Durgapur. The plant's management fears that it may lose bulk business from Salem Steel Plant following the latter's decision to implement a forward integration programme. Since Salem's forward integration means the loss of business for Alloy Steel Plant, the problem has to be addressed by SAIL, Mr Roongta said.

Delivering the keynote address at the Metals Conclave here, Mr Roongta said that the country's economic growth had come to a stage when the demand for steel was bound to grow substantially. The demand would be generated mainly from the automobile, infrastructure and construction sectors. Construction sector alone consumed at present about 11 million tonnes of steel items per annum. The quantity was equivalent to about 25 per cent of the country's total steel production.

Mr Roongta said that the domestic steel industry should get ready to play a major role in the coming years as the growth in manufacturing sectors such as automobile components and automobile-linked industries, was expected to touch more than 12 per cent. He pointed out that the second phase of the Indian GDP growth would be propelled by the manufacturing sector as against the first phase of the GDP growth, which was led by the services sector. He asked domestic steel makers to improve quality of steel and diversify capacity base to meet the future requirement of different type, grades and specification of steel products by automobile, construction and infrastructure industries

The Metals Conclave was organised by the Bengal Chamber of Commerce & Industry (BCCI) in association with West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation.

In his speech, the BCCI President, Mr Aloke Mookherjea, said the conclave was a signature event of the chamber and had been organised on an annual basis during the past three years. This year's event has brought together the worlds of steel and auto components and construction sector. The chamber thought that it was appropriate time to focus on some of the specific growth areas and the ever changing and continuously shifting parameters governing these.

More Stories on : Modernisation | Steel | Steel Authority of India Ltd | West Bengal

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