State-run Steel Authority of India Ltd must step up its product grades and standards and lower expectations of privileges as new and nimble private companies intensify competition, steel minister and steel secretary said at a function marking the company’s 60th anniversary.
“I have a word of caution – you will have to keep pace with times and act with speed, aggression, innovation and loyalty,” said Chaudhary Birender Singh, union steel minister. “High grade and value added steel are the top priorities of the government.”
Singh’s statement may set the future direction for SAIL and other steel producers as they unleash their ambitious expansion plans keeping in sight the high growth for the alloy in India and rest of Asia, mainly driven by infrastructure and automobile sectors.
Most steel companies have also started to shift the product mix to more of value added steel and less of commoditised steel as it fetches a better price. Companies have stated that product innovations will be the driver of the future.
“The age of special privileges and facilities are getting limited, therefore you have to compete in this environment,” Binoy Kumar, steel secretary added on the same note. “On a large number of technical parameters, the private sector has gone much beyond SAIL.. SAIL can think of adopting them.”
SAIL has a production capacity of 21 million tonnes and wants to raise it to 50 million tonnes by 2030-31 via greenfield and brownfield expansions.
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