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India has been able to save ₹5,000 crore worth of foreign exchange through domestic substitution of high-end steel over imports, according to Union Steel Minister Choudhary Birender Sigh.
In an interaction with BusinessLine and The Hindu journalists here on Friday, Singh said the savings have been achieved by boosting production of high-end steel for the application, shipping, defence, medical equipment and infrastructure sectors.
He said the government has been able to incentivise high-end steel makers and this has resulted in reduction of import by 36 per cent to 7.48 million tonnes in 2017-18 compared from 11.7 mt in 2015-16.
High-quality substitution
“We are on the job of substitution of high-quality steel. With substantial production of steel locally and reduction in imports, our dependence on other countries has to come down.”
Singh said that as and when the scrappage policy comes into force, domestic steel will get a big boost. He also pointed out that Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL) has tied up with Arcelor Mittal to produce high-grade steel for the automobile sector, which will help auto-makers buy it in the domestic market instead of importing it.
To meet the nation’s needs, substantial R&D, innovation is required and the Steel Ministry has set up Steel Research and Technology Mission of India for this purpose.
According to the new National Steel Policy 2017, India is projected to have a capacity of 300 mt by 2030-31 with a production of 255 mt, with finished steel per capita consumption of around 160 kg during the same period.
The per capita steel consumption is around 68 kg, which is much lower than the world average of around 208 kg.
Besides, the thrust of the government on infrastructure development is sure to have a positive impact on the domestic demand, the Minister said.
The Minister was accompanied by Joint Secretary, Steel, Ruchika Govil, and private secretary Sameer Shukla, IAS. BusinessLine Editor Raghavan Srinivasan moderated the discussion.
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