Ministry of Steel is facilitating an Industry driven institutional mechanism namely Steel Research & Technology Mission of India (SRTMI), to facilitate joint collaborative research projects in the iron & steel sector in India. The salient features of SRTMI are as under:
- SRTMI is an industry driven initiative which has been setup as a Registered Society wherein Ministry of Steel is a facilitator.
- SRTMI will be governed and administered by a Governing Body comprising the steel CEOs, Domain Experts and a representative of Ministry of Steel.
- The executive functioning of SRTMI will be carried out by the Director, SRTMI, who will be assisted by a suitable/appropriate supporting structure.
- Initial corpus for setting up of SRTMI is Rs. 200 crore of which 50% is to be provided by Ministry of Steel and the balance by the participating steel companies.
- Thereafter, the centre will run on yearly contributions from the steel companies based on their turnover of the previous year.
The R&D investment of the leading steel companies in India in terms of percentage of their turnover ranges from 0.05 to 0.5% vis-à-vis upto 1% in leading steel companies internationally. Some of the steel companies have also formulated their R&D masterplans to increase their R&D expenditure to 1% of their turnover. SRTMI is likely to enhance the R&D investments in the industry to international levels.