By IANS
Kolkata : The corpus of private steel manufacturing units in India will form a Steel Development Research Mission (SDRM) by the end of the current financial year, Union Steel Secretary R.S. Pandey said Friday.
“The corpus will set up SDRM with an investment of about Rs.650 million. The unit will promote research oriented works in the steel manufacturing sector in India,” Pandey told a national seminar on opportunities in the steel industry organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).
He said the research mission would be on virtual mode and it would help promote research in existing institutions, especially in critical areas.
“The government will act as a facilitator while the private sector enterprises will make a one-time contribution to the project,” he said.
Pointing out the present scenario of the steel sector in India, Pandey said presently India’s total capacity of steel production is 50 million tonnes (MT) per year.
“By 2015-16 we are targeting 120 MT annual steel production, which will subsequently be the second largest steel production in the world, and by 2020 this is expected to reach 200 MT with a total investment of Rs.600 trillion,” Pandey said.
He added that the private sector steel units in India presently contributed 62 percent of the country’s total steel production. About five years ago this figure was about 37 percent.
Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL) chairman S.K. Roongta, who was present at the seminar, said there was a dearth of skilled manpower in the country’s steel manufacturing sector.