"Steel production may touch 300-mn tonnes"

Visakhapatnam: The target of 200 million tonnes by 2020, as envisaged in the steel policy, can be achieved and in fact the output may even touch 300-million-tonne mark, but there are quite a few challenges ahead, according to Mr Y. Sivasagara Rao, the former CMD of the Visakhapatnam Steel Plant and the current Joint Managing Director of Jindal South-West Steel Ltd.

In his keynote address at the Global Steel Conference-Vision 2020, organised here on Friday by a Kolkata-based magazine, Steel and Metallurgy, he said that land acquisition, allotment of captive iron-ore mines, logistics, upgrading of technologies and environment were some of the key issued to be faced by the industry in reaching the goal. Finding the right human resources was also crucial, he said.

He suggested a package for land acquisition for the new projects. The displaced family should be paid the market price for the land, and shares should be allotted equivalent to the value of the land out of the promoters’ quota, subject to the condition that they should not be sold till commencement of commercial production. A job should be given to a member of each displaced family and training should be imparted to the member, if necessary. “This package has worked well in West Bengal where we have acquired 4,500 acres for our 10-million-tonne steel plant,” he said and added that the Chief Minister, Mr Buddadeb Bhattacharya, was very appreciative of the package.

Ban on iron ore exports:

He sought immediate ban on iron ore exports, terming it “our duty for posterity.” India, too, should conserve iron-ore like China. “Otherwise, our reserves may be exhausted by 2041 and we may have to import ore then,” he cautioned. He called for new, and better, technologies to make use of even the low-grade ore.

Mr Sivasagara Rao said that logistics too presented a major problem, as four tonnes of material would have to moved for every tonne of steel produced and therefore the railways, ports and roadways should be upgraded to handle at least 800 million tonnes by 2020. He laid emphasis on coastal shipping.

He opined that more pelletisation capacity should be created in the country and that alternative technologies (and not the traditional blast furnace technology) should be used in steel manufacture. “We should also explore the alternative fuels such as natural gas,” he suggested. He said the industry should invest more in R&D for these technologies and also for finding eco-friendly ones.

Dr R. Bhima Rao, the Deputy Director of the Institute of Minerals and Materials Technology (Bhubaneswar), Mr Nirmalya Mukherjee, the editor of the magazine, Mr Tomasz Milas, the Managing Director of TM Steels (Poland), Mr G.C Das, the Director (iron ore) of the Geological Survey of India, and Prof. A. Appa Rao, the principal of Andhra University College of Engineering, also spoke.