The domestic industry should focus on increasing volumes instead of excessive profiteering to boost the growth of the steel sector, said Steel Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.
Speaking at CII Webinar on ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat: Fostering Steel Usage in Housing & Construction & Aviation Sector’, Pradhan said that lower costs will make steel more lucrative for infrastructure development. He also said that low-cost steel-intensive housing can be adopted and popularised.
“Affordability is also a factor that needs to be looked into by the steel sector. The domestic industry should look at ways to make low-cost steel-intensive housing that can be used for migrants,” Pradhan said.
Also speaking at the Webinar, Civil Aviation and Housing Minister Hardeep Puri said that currently about 700 km metro length is operational in 18 cities and about 900 km network is under construction in 27 cities. He added that the average per kilometre requirement of steel in metro projects is about 13,000 tonnes.
Puri said that nearly 84 lakh tonnes steel and 370 lakh tonnes cement would have already been consumed in houses grounded/completed so far.
An official statement said that under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Urban), so far, 1.07 crore houses (against demand of 1.12 crore houses) across 4,550 urban cities and 67 lakh houses have been grounded and 35 lakh have been delivered so far.
Highlighting usage of steel in the aviation sector, Puri said that the value of steel used in construction of Airport Terminal Buildings in the past three years is approximately ₹570 crore.