The Hindu Business Line : ‘India should shore up iron ore capacity’

Talking time: Mr B Muthuraman, Managing Director, Tata Steel, and Mr Murugesh Nirani, Karnataka Minister for Large and Medium Scale Industry, at a conference organised by the CII in Bangalore on Friday. —

Our Bureau

Bangalore, Oct. 17 Reiterating his stand against export of iron ore to encourage smoother capacity in steel production, Mr B. Muthuraman, Managing Director of Tata Steel Ltd, said no major steel producing countries export raw material.

With India still to catch up with adequate capacity to meet the growing consumption demand, Mr Muthuraman said India should aim to build up a capacity of 300-400 million tonnes capacity to meet its sustained long-term growth needs.

Talking to mediapersons on the sidelines of a CII Conference on ‘Manufacturing Competitiveness: Technology Outsourcing and Innovation’ held here on Friday, he said he also wanted the Government to speed up clearances to enable the industry to embark on faster capacity build-up. Even while the demand exceeds supply, no new capacity had been created for some time due to delays in Government clearances relating to land allotment and captive mines licences.

Mr Muthuraman said the high price of steel was not due to demand-supply mismatch alone, but also due to the rising cost of raw materials, which had a significant contribution to it.

No karnataka plant

He said Tata Steel had no plans to set up a steel plant in Karnataka, as reported by a section of the media. The company, he added, would be pursuing its current expansion plans, rather than foraying into new areas. Tata Steel is expanding its capacity in its Jamshedpur plant to 10 million tonnes by 2010, while it is pursuing greenfield projects in Gopalpur in Orissa and Chatthisgarh.

‘Double the growth’

Earlier, speaking at the CII conference, Mr Muthuraman said the manufacturing sector needs to growth twice the current rate of 10 to 15 per cent to obviate stagnation in the economy. To achieve faster growth, he said the industry should empower the employees and create an environment for them to be part of the process of innovation and standardisation. Standardisation played a key role in giving a competitive edge to manufacturing.

Inaugurating the conference, the Karnataka Minister for Large and Medium Scale Industry, Mr Murugesh Nirani, said the Government plans to give special incentives and concessions through a new industrial policy to be announced soon.

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