Details of overall capacity, production and capacity utilization of crude steel in India during the last five years is given below:-
Year | Crude Steel (in million ton) | ||
Capacity | Production | Capacity Utilization (%) | |
2017-18 | 137.97 | 103.13 | 75 |
2018-19 | 142.24 | 110.92 | 78 |
2019-20 | 142.30 | 109.14 | 77 |
2020-21 | 143.91 | 103.54 | 72 |
2021-22 | 154.06 | 120.29 | 78 |
Source: Joint Plant Committee |
The labour productivity varies from plant to plant depending upon the technology, level of integration, efficiency, extent of outsourcing etc. and, therefore, inter-plant and inter-country comparisons may not necessarily reflect the efficiency in use of human resources. Labour productivity is an operational and management issue which depends on technology, operational practices, cost of capitals etc. The government has no direct role in raising labour productivity in the steel plants. Being a deregulated sector with 901 players, the per capita labour productivity increases by better practices by the sector.
The increase in production of crude steel in the past five years is as given in the table above. Further, India has been a net exporter of steel in recent years as there has been increase in exports and decrease in imports of steel. The details of import and export of finished steel during last three years are given below:-
Year | Crude Steel (mt) | Finished Steel (mt) | |
Production | Import | Export | |
2019-20 | 109.14 | 6.77 | 8.36 |
2020-21 | 103.54 | 4.75 | 10.78 |
2021-22 | 120.29 | 4.67 | 13.49 |
Source: Joint Plant Committee, mt= million ton |
Government has taken the following steps to protect and promote the domestic steel industry, which include: –
- Notification of National Steel Policy 2017 which envisages, inter-alia, domestically meeting the entire demand of steel and high-grade automotive steel, electrical steel, special steel and alloys for strategic applications
- Notification of Domestically Manufactured Iron & Steel Products (DMI&SP) Policy for promoting procurement of Made in India steel.
- Notification of Steel Import Monitoring System (SIMS) for advanced registration of steel imports.
- Issuance of Steel Quality Control Order to stop manufacturing and import of non-standardized steel.
This information was given by the Minister of State for Steel, Shri Faggan Singh Kulaste in a written reply in the Lok Sabha today.