Lok Sabha Question No. 2386 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2016-05-09
Subject: Steel Production
Ministry: STEEL
Asked by: FEROZE VARUN GANDHI

## LOK SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO.2386 FOR ANSWER ON 09/05/2016

## STEEL PRODUCTION

2386.  SHRI FEROZE VARUN GANDHI:

Will the Minister of STEEL be pleased to state:

- (a) whether it is a fact that majority of the Steel manufactured in the country is of secondary route and thus of an inferior quality and if so, the details thereof;
- (b) the primary  reasons  behind  the  issues  related  to  the quality of steel production in the country;
- (c) the manner in which the Government proposes to address the inferior quality of machinery available for production of steel in the country; and
- (d) the  steps  taken  by  the  Government  to  make  Country's  Steel  companies globally competitive?

## ANSWER

THE MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF (SHRI  VISHNU  DEO  SAI) STEEL AND MINES

- (a) & (b): In  India,  majority  of  (around  70%)  crude  steel  is  produced  in  Basic Oxygen Furnaces (BOF) and Electric Arc Furnaces (EAF) adopted in the integrated steel  sector  or  in  secondary  sector,  where  there  are  no  technological  issues  in producing quality steel. The balance crude steel is produced by Induction Furnace units which have technological limitations in refining of steel, to remove undesirable elements, if any, present in the inputs.
- (c) Ministry of Steel has constituted a Core Group comprising domain experts to find ways & means to address the issues faced by the induction furnace units. As per the  recommendations  of  the  Core  Group,  the  Government  is  providing  financial assistance for pursuing R&D projects to find suitable ways to produce quality steel in Induction Furnace from available inputs in the country.
- (d) The steel industry is a deregulated sector and the Government's role is only that  of  a  facilitator  to  lay  down  policy  guidelines  and  establishing  conducive environment for growth & development of the Indian steel sector. The National steel Policy  2005  has  stressed  upon  the  need  for  the  Indian  steel  industry  to  achieve global  competitiveness  not only  in  terms of  cost,  quality  &  product-mix  but also  in terms of global benchmarks of efficiency & productivity. The various initiatives by the

Government and the steel industry to make the sector globally competitive are given below:

- The  Indian  steel  companies  have  undertaken  substantial  modernisation  & expansion  programmes  adopting state-of-the-art  technologies  for  enhancing their  capacities  and  also  to  improve  their  efficiencies  at  par  with  the  global standards.
- Several new green field steel plants have been setup adopting the latest and state-of-the-art  technologies  to  produce  quality  steel  at  competitive  cost  in environmentally sustainable manner.
- Some  of  the  integrated  steel  plants  have  entered  into  joint  collaboration agreements with the leading steel producers abroad to produce value added steel products such as automotive steel, at competitive cost.
- Some of the global leaders are also setting up wholly owned subsidiaries to produce value added quality steel for meeting domestic requirement and also for export.
- Government has also issued Steel & Steel Products (Quality Control) Orders to promote production and use of quality steel in critical end use applications.
- The  Indian  steel  industry  is  also  pursuing  R&D  in  bringing  improvement  in productivity, quality of the steel products, mitigate pollution and also to reduce cost of production.
- Ministry of Steel is supplementing the R&D efforts of the steel industry by providing  financial  assistance  from  Plan  fund  of  the  Government  and  also Steel Development Fund.
- Ministry  of  Steel  is  also  facilitating  setting  up  of  an  industry  led  institutional mechanism to spearhead research & development of national importance for the iron & steel sector.
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