Competitiveness is the key in the steel sector as new capacities are added. Plants that cut down on costs and maintain quality would do well as domestic consumption is projected to increase substantially, according to Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd (RINL) Chairman and Managing Director A.P. Choudhary.
He was speaking as the chief guest at a seminar on the steel industry in Andhra Pradesh, organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry here on Monday. He said going by the Centre's targets, by 2020 India should become the second largest steel producer after China; this was was a realistic target, he said.
“India is currently in the fourth position with 71 million tonnes and China is the first with more than 600 million tonnes annually. It would be a creditable achievement for India to achieve the second slot, even though there would still be a vast gulf separating the first and second positions,” he said.
He said the big challenge was to source raw material for the enhanced capacities and upgrade infrastructure for production and consumption in the domestic market as well as for exports. He said India was in a position to produce special steels required for sectors such as ship-building and “we are inferior to none in technologies.” There was, however, a need to spend more on R&D for more eco-friendly technologies.
He said the manufacturing sector in the State has been stagnating over the past four years and not many industrial units (small and medium ones) had come up in the vicinity of RINL. “There should be more SMEs and ancillaries here,” he said, adding, RINL would support them. Currently, RINL was forced to source many components from other States as there were no units nearby.
Rear Admiral N.K. Mishra, CMD of Hindustan Shipyard Ltd, said more greenfield steel units should come up in the country. As for special steels required for ship-building, he said for certain special steels the volumes required were so small it would not make sense to make them domestically and the industry should take up the production of other special steels.
Former CMD of RINL Y. Sivasagara Rao said “our steel units would have to strive to produce steel in accordance with international benchmarks.Until then, our products would not be really be competitive."
T.K. Chand, Director (Commercial) of RINL and CII Chairman, Visakhapatnam zone, welcomed the gathering.