 "Steel industry lags in techno-economic parameters: minister")
New Delhi: Domestic steel industry is lagging behind in a host of techno-economic parameters such as blast furnace productivity and energy consumption compared to its global peers, Parliament was informed today.
Minister of State for Steel and Mines Vishnu Deo Sai replied in the affirmative to a written question in Rajya Sabha on whether India has been lagging behind other major steel producing nations in terms of techno-economic efficiency of operations.[caption id=“attachment_76010” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image. Reuters[/caption]
Citing example of the blast furnace productivity, he said it was maximum of 2.8 tonnes a day per cubic meter of working
volume for Indian steel makers against a maximum of 3.5 tonnes a day per cubic meter of working volume for global industry.
Energy consumption by Indian steel industry for producing one tonne of crude steel was also higher at 6-6.5 Gcal against 4.5-5.5 Gcal in the world steel industry.
Indian steel makers also lag behind in coke rate and CO2 emission.
“The greenfield steel plants set up in the 1990s or thereafter have mostly adopted state-of-the-art technologies. Within a very short span of time, most of these plants have also expanded their capacities manifold, adopting in the process, clean and green state-of-the-art technologies,” he said.
“However, the pace of modernisation, renovation and expansion in some of the older plants has remained slow. This, together with certain constraints in raw material quality, summarily explains the poor techno-economic performance of these steel plants in the country,” Sai added.
The minister said other parameters such as transportation cost, raw material cost, access to market also have a bearing
on competitiveness.
Replying to a separate question, he said about 3.59 lakh tonnes of bars and rods have been imported from China during the April-October period, 2014.
The minister also said the government was not considering any proposal to roll back export levy on iron ore pellet to boost up the steel industries.
PTI
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