(a) the quantum of steel produced in the country during each of the last three years, plant-wise;
(b) whether the production of steel in the country is not at par with its demand;
(c) if so, the details indicating its annual demand and supply;
(d) the reasons for not meeting the demand;
(e) whether any target has been fixed to augment the steel production in the near future;
(f) if so, the details thereof; and
(g) the steps taken in this direction so far?
MINISTER OF CHEMICALS & FERTILIZERS AND MINISTER OF STEEL (SHRI RAM VILAS PASWAN)
(a) to (g): A statement is laid on the Table of the Lok Sabha.
STATEMENT REFERRED TO IN REPLY TO PARTS (A) TO (G) OF THE LOK SABHA STARRED QUESTION NO.413 TO BE ANSWERED ON 25/4/2005 TABLED BY SHRI RATILAL KALIDAS VARMA AND SHRI YOGI ADITYA NATH REGARDING PRODUCTION OF STEEL
(a) The Government does not monitor the production of steel in the private sector. However the production at major steel plants in public sector and the integrated steel plant (Tisco) in the Private Sector is at Annexure-I
(b) No, Sir. The production of steel in the country is in excess of the domestic demand.
(c) & (d): Does not arise in view of (b) above.
(e) & (f): Depending upon their perceptions of demand and supply position, targets are generally set by the individual steel producers. However as a long term measure, in the proposed National Steel Policy (NSP), it has been estimated that in order to become self reliant and globally competitive in the steel sector the country would require indigenous production of over 100 million tonnes of steel per annum by 2020. In order to achieve the goal of over 100 million tonnes of steel production by 2019-20 the NSP seeks to remove the supply side constraints to the growth of this industry in an open, globally integrated and competitive environment. Apart from the broad based policy statements, the NSP also chalks out specific action points to achieve the policy objectives.
(g) The Government has taken several steps to increase the production of steel such as modernisation 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.
Annexure - I
The year-wise production of saleable steel in the country during each of the last three years, plant-wise:
(Unit 000`t)
Plant 2002-03 2003-04 2004-05
Bhilai Steel Plant 3616 4091 3935 Durgapur Steel Plant 1585 1612 1635 Rourkela Steel Plant 1527 1575 1556 Bokaro Steel Plant 3358 3450 3524 Alloy Steel Plant 99 113 128 Salem Steel Plant 83 85 149 Visvesvaraya Iron & Steel Plant 84 100 102 Indian Iron & Steel Co. Ltd. 289 258 287 Visakhapatnam Steel Plant 3056 3169 3173 Tata Iron & Steel Co. 3980 4060 4110