Investment in Steel Sector

The Minister of Steel, Shri Beni Prasad Verma has said that Steel is a deregulated sector.  The role of Government is that of a facilitator.  The Government promotes /encourages growth of steel industry through suitable policy measures based on its assessment of industry performance.  As far as the setting up of steel investment projects is concerned, the size and type of steel projects are decided by the individual investors on techno-economic considerations.  Currently, a number of major steel investment projects are at various stages of progress, both in Greenfield (new projects) and Brownfield (capacity expansion of existing plants) areas. Based on the information available in the Ministry, the likely scenario of steel production capacity in India by the year 2017-18 is given as under:

The major steel producers who are already in the process of capacity expansion and adding new capacities are:-

(Crude Steel capacity in million tonne)

S.No.	Investor	Existing Capacity*	Brownfield Proposed Expansion Capacity upto 2017-18
1.	SAIL	12.84	21.40
2.	RINL	3.00	7.00
3.	Tata Steel Limited	6.8	9.70
4.	Essar Steel Limited	10.00	10.00
5.	JSW Steel Limited	11.00	12.00
6.	Jindal Steel & Power Limited	3.50	4.25
7.	JSW Ispat Steel Limited	3.30	4.50
8.	Bhushan Steel Limited	3.26	5.20
9.	Monnet Ispat & Energy Ltd.	0.30	1.50
10.	Visa Steel Ltd.	0.50	2.50

(*As per the latest information available in the Ministry)

In a written reply in the Lok Sabha today Shri Verma said, as per information available in the Ministry of Steel, no foreign country per se has expressed interest in investing in the Steel sector directly, however, some foreign companies like POSCO and Arcelor Mittal have shown interest in investing in this sector. Keeping in view the importance of the implementation of major steel projects in the country, an Inter-Ministerial Group (IMG), under the Chairmanship of the Secretary (Steel), has been constituted (in the Ministry of Steel) to monitor and coordinate major steel investments in the country.

He said, Public Sector Undertakings, viz. Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) and Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (RINL), have launched their own expansion/ modernization programmes to augment their steel production capacity and to adopt modern technology. Government monitors the performance of these companies by way of signing of MoUs and holding performance review meetings at regular intervals.

The Minister said, since the formulation of National Steel Policy 2005, dynamics in the steel sector have changed considerably. Therefore, it has been decided to formulate a New National Steel Policy.  Four Task Forces have been constituted to study, analyze and formulate draft new Policy documents covering different aspects of the subject. The Task Forces have submitted their reports and the same are under consideration of the Government. After detailed discussions with various stakeholders and concerned Ministries/Departments, a final view in this matter will be taken in due course.