Steel is the backbone of Indian economy and although India is moving fast in its race to become the world’s second-largest crude steel producer the country lacks in its special steel production that has increasing demand in multiple sectors such as automobile, defence, shipping, railways, health, and space technology to name a few.
Special steel is distinguished from other types of steel of similar composition by its unusual purity, which is a result of either the smelting and deoxidation or the special pouring and treatment methods. Special steel is an important symbol to measure whether a country can become a steel power.
China is the world’s largest special steel producer with a percentage share of 49% in world’s total special steel production followed by Japan and India stands to be third in the list. At present India imports about 92% of its special steel requirement and the cost of imports is also very high which increases country’s need to become self-sufficient in terms of special steel production.
The central government is coming up with an ‘Alloy policy’
As per the latest market updates, the government is planning to come out with an alloy policy in a bid to augment the special steel output of India. Steel Secretary of India, Ms. Aruna Sharma in her media interaction today said that the increased demand for special steel from various sectors has made the government to come with such policy.
She added that the demand for the special steel is going to increase as industries like shipping, automobile, defence are growing in the country where such steel will be required. Therefore it is very important that India should gear itself to start making special steel. Centre has already started working on the alloy policy and has designed a road map as how to move towards making special steel.
This alloy policy not only aims at increasing the output of special steel but also at producing more grades of special steel in the country. However, the time frame for this policy roll-out has not been disclosed by the government.
The Union minister, Mr. Birnder Singh has also earlier said that that India should cut down its dependence on special steel product imports through value addition and form JVs with global leaders for technological know-how, the way we are making base and auto-grade steel.
Last year, the government had approved National Steel Policy with an aim to raise domestic crude steel capacity to 300 million tonnes by 2030-31.
Leave a Reply