Production of domestic steel has witnessed a steep surge of more than 20% in the first eight months of the financial year 2021—a big boost for the steel industry, which has already been facing a tough time due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.

The Ministry further claimed that the industry is likely to see another surge in production once the Performance Linked Scheme of Speciality Steel starts its production. As per the PLI scheme for Domestic Production of Speciality Steel, the Centre has approved incentives of around Rs 6,322 crore to companies that would set up its Speciality Steel production unit in India.

 According to the Ministry, the production performance of Steel sector during the first eight months of the current fiscal has touched 76.44 Million Metric Tons (MT) as against the production of around 60 MT in the year 2020-21.

Similarly, the production of finished steel was at 72.07 MT during April-November, 2021, against the production of less than 60 MT in the year 2020-21, the data released by the Ministry states.

“What is encouraging is that the improved performance was achieved despite the adverse effect of the second wave of COVID-19 and concomitant localized lockdowns,” the Ministry claimed.

On the export front also, the industry has performed remarkably, while the export during the current FY (April-November 2021) was 9.53 MT the Import was not even 3.06 MT vis-à-vis export of 10.78 MT and import of 4.75 MT during the corresponding period last year and export of 8.36 MT and import of 6.77 MT in 2019-20 (April-November).

Besides PLI for the steel sector, the Ministry of Steel had also notified a Policy for Providing Preference to Domestically Manufactured Iron and Steel Products (DMI and SP Policy)to provide preference to domestically produced iron and steel material in Government procurement. 

The recently notified PLI scheme for domestic production of speciality steel would result in capacity addition of 25 MT, and attract additional investments of about Rs.40000 crore. Once the scheme would start its production, it is expected to generate employment for 5.25 lakh people, the Ministry claimed.