The Hindu Business Line : Inter-ministerial meeting on steel postponed

New Delhi, Oct. 17 The meeting of the Inter Ministerial Group (IMG), set up to suggest measures to monitor and coordinate issues concerning major steel investments in the country, has been postponed once again.

“The IMG was supposed to have met on Thursday but now the meeting has been postponed to October 30,” an official in the Steel Ministry told Business Line.

This is the second time that the meeting has been postponed. The meeting was originally scheduled for October 8, but had to be postponed due to the non-availability of the Steel Secretary, Mr R.S. Pandey.

“This time, however, the meeting has to be postponed as the officials from the Orissa Government said they will not be able to make it due the festival season,” the official said.

The Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, in July had approved the constitution of the IMG with a mandate to review measures for early completion of the major steel capacities.

Key issues

The key issues to be discussed by the IMG include ensuring adequate iron-ore resources to the steel utilities and the possibility of opening up more coal blocks for major projects and seek their allocation on a fast track manner.

An investment of around Rs 2,76,880 crore is envisaged in the domestic steel sector by 2011-12. “According to Ministry estimates, steel production is likely to be around 124 million tonnes (mt) by the end of the current five-year Plan. This will require around 198 mt of iron-ore. Also, a lot of companies have sought coal blocks in Jharkhand, Orissa and Chhattisgarh which is another important issue before the IMG,” the official said.

He added that companies keen to expand production capacity have made it clear that they would require iron-ore mines to carry out both greenfield and brownfield expansions.

The group is also likely to look into the issues of environmental clearances. “The existing policy for getting environmental clearance needs amendment for faster and more transparent way of getting the requisite permissions. This is a major hurdle for the investments into the sector and the IMG will deliberate on the issue,” he said.