MINISTER OF CHEMICALS & FERTILIZERS AND MINISTER OF STEEL
(SHRI RAM VILAS PASWAN)
(a)The quantum of Finished(Carbon)Steel imported by India during the last three years and the current year is
given below:-
(in million tonnes)
Imports 2001-02 2002-03 2003-04 April-June 2004 (Provisional) (Provisional)
Finished(Carbon)Steel 1.271 1.510 1.650 1.350
(Source: JPC)
(b)Major countries from where steel has been imported during the last three years include Commonwealth of
Independent States, Japan, Korea, South Africa, United Kingdom, Germany, United Arab Emirates and Australia.
The country wise details of value of imports of iron and steel during the last year is given in the Annexure.
(c)The country is self sufficient in the production of iron and steel except for certain special grades of steel required
in small quantities.The small requirements do not justify setting up of domestic capacity for such grades through
heavy investments.
In a deregulated and liberalised environment, the Government plays the role of a facilitator and provides an enabling
environment through policy initiatives to foster growth of the steel industry.The Government through its policy
initiatives has taken several steps to increase production of iron and steel in the country which inter-alia include
the following:-
(i) allowing private entrepreneurs to setup steel plants
(ii) allowing foreign collaborations in steel projects.
(iii) modernization and expansion of public sector steel plants and adoption of various policy measures to encourage creation of additional steel production capacity in the private sector. Indian steel producers have also taken steps to meet the domestic requirement of steel including upgradation of technology, improvement in productivity, improvement in quality of products and adoption of an appropriate product mix to meet the requirement of the consumers.
