Steel consumer industry has supported
the Government to intervene and save the downstream steel consuming industry by
arranging regular supply of iron ore to the steel plants which has been hit in the
wake of recent Supreme Court order.
The HR coil consumers such as
steel tube and cold rolling industries are worried about the future
availability of HR coil because of reduced supply of iron ore to the HR coil
producers following the recent Supreme Court order relating to mining of iron
ore in Bellary.
India's total iron ore
production in 2010-11 was 215 million tones, out of which 100 million goes for
export, and balance 115 iron ore is available for domestic participants. Due to
the ban on mining and Government policy, industry association and consumers are
worried about shortage of iron ore in India to the extent of 50 per cent.
JSW Steel, one of the major steel
producers in the county, supplying HR Coil to a large number of down the stream
HR coil processing units, has come out openly to say that it would be compelled
to shut its plant because of non availability of iron ore.
This has caused panic among the
small and medium scale units which depend on HR coil for running their units.
If the steel plants do not get regular supply of iron ore and they are forced
to shut down, the non availability of steel like HR coil would create chaos.
The
shortage would impact the prices of HR coil and of the industrial goods like
steel pipes, CR coil and sheets which are largely consumed by housing and the
farm sector for irrigation and in water supply schemes run by the Government
for the “Aam Adami” (familiar person).
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