India's crude steel output declines 4% to 8.99 MT in January; sets target to produce 300 MT by 2030, to invest Rs 10 lakh cr

New Delhi: India’s crude steel production fell by 3.84 percent to 8.995 million tonnes (MT) in January 2019, according to the Joint Plant Committee (JPC). The fall is reported after World Steel Association (worldsteel) recently announced that India has replaced Japan as the world’s second-largest steel producing country. On 25 January, worldsteel in its report noted that India’s crude steel production in 2018 was at 106.5 MT, while as Japan produced 104.3 MT in 2018. [caption id=“attachment_4299401” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. Reuters[/caption] “Crude steel production stood at 8.995 MT in January 2019, down by 3.8 percent over January 2018, and was down by 0.2 over December 2018,” the JPC said in its latest report. The country had produced 9.355 MT crude steel during the same month a year ago, it said. In January, state-run Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL) and Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd (RINL) together with private players JSW Steel, Tata Steel, Jindal Steel and Power Ltd (JSPL) and Essar Steel produced 5.486 MT of the crude metal. The rest came in from other producers, the report said. In January 2019, the production of hot metal stood at 6.194 MT, 3.3 percent higher compared to 5.999 MT in the same month last year. The country’s pig iron production fell by 3 percent to 0.526 MT in January this year, as against 0.542 MT in the same period previous year. India has set a target of producing 300 MT crude steel by 2030 with an investment of Rs 10 lakh crore. A national steel policy has already been approved by the by the Cabinet. Under the ministry of steel, JPC is the only institution in India that collects and maintains data on domestic iron and steel sector.