The Union Minister for Steel and Mines Narendra Singh Tomar has said that India does not want to stand on the 4th position in steel production in the world but wants to move to 2nd position in the next 10 years by scaling up the steel production in the country to 300 million tonnes by 2025 from the current level of 81 million tonnes in 2013-14. He said this while awarding the National Metallurgy Day awards at the College of Engineering in Pune recently.
Tomar said the steel industry is committed to achieving this target under the ‘Make in India' program chalked out by the PM Narendra Modi. He said in order to achieve this, forgetting the neglect and lapses of the past, we would try and remove the obstacles in supply of the raw material iron ore for steel producers, remove problems in mining of the ore, and bring in simplicity and transparency in the sector so that producers are rest assured that if they invest in a plant they can produce the steel.
Tomar told the gathering which included leading steel industrialists from the country that except SAIL and Tata Steel most other producers are dependent on others' mines and hence simplifying procedures and amending the law would be done. The MMDR Act would be amended by doing the necessary research on the changes required.
Addressing the research and academic community, he said research is a neglected activity in the sector and this must be corrected by increasing the spending on R&D. Tomar said without R&D we cannot hope to be a large exporter in steel and catch up with countries like China.
His ministry, he said has decided to set up a Research Centre to encourage R&D in the sector which will also encompass the private sector and appealed to those who have not got involved to get associated with it now.
Dwelling at length on the China story he said they have invested in R&D and planned heavy investments in advance which we did not do, but need to do now. The Minister said, Steel dominates the metal industry in the country and contributes two percent to the GDP and employs six lakh people and the challenges have to be met.
END
