• Under Mission Purvodaya, government is building an Integrated Steel Hub in eastern India which would add to the competitiveness of the steel sector and facilitate regional development with job creation.

    • The steel clusters will drive employment opportunities across the value chain, creating both direct and indirect jobs and spurring entrepreneurship, including in under-developed areas.

    • It will spur development of other manufacturing industries and will be accompanied with social infrastructure in the form of cities, schools, hospitals, skilling centers etc.

    • The superlative objective here is to transform India into an ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’ from being just a passive market to an active manufacturing hub at the heart of global value chains.

    • As a part of it Purvodaya- eastern India has to drive the national growth. There is a need for focused development of the Eastern India to harness the untapped potential of this region to fuel next wave of national growth.

    • Both petroleum as well as steel sector have to play an important role in Mission Purvodaya.

    • Indian gas grid is being expanded to new markets in eastern and north- eastern part of the country with Government’s supports of capital grants under the Indradhanush North Eastern Gas Grid projects.

    • Pradhan Mantri Urja Ganga (PMUG) project is directed to provide piped cooking gas to the millions of households in eastern states.

    • Steel continues to play an important role in our country as we seek to build a modern economy. Despite being the world’s second largest producer of steel, India’s annual per capita steel consumption is 74.1 kg and is one-third the global average (224.5kg).

    • There is an excellent opportunity for India to increase its steel consumption and avail advantages of greater steel use such as reduced life cycle cost increased durability and greater environment sustainability.

    • Ministry of Steel has launched a collaborative branding campaign ‘Ispati Irada’ with the objective of promoting appropriate steel usage in the country. 

    • This aims to leverage usage of steel as an easy-to-use, environment-friendly, cost-effective, affordable and strength-giving material.

    • Through this DMI&SP Policy, steel imports worth more than Rs. 20,000 cr. have so far been avoided.

    • Government is working to ensure raw material security for the sector, trying to diversify the sources of coking coal imports, and going to come up with a steel scrap policy which provides a framework to facilitate and promote establishment of metal scrapping centres in India for scientific processing & recycling of ferrous scrap generated from various sources and a variety of products.

    • SAIL’s IISCO Steel Plant (ISP) and Durgapur Steel Plant (DSP) situated in Burnpur and Durgapur at West Bengal have an important role to play in the development of the eastern region as well as the nation.

Steel Authority of India Limited

Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) is one of the largest steel-making companies in India and one of the Maharatna’s of the country’s Central Public Sector Enterprises.

SAIL produces iron and steel at five integrated plants and three special steel plants, located principally in the eastern and central regions of India and situated close to domestic sources of raw materials. SAIL manufactures and sells a broad range of steel products.

SAIL traces its origin to the formative years of an emerging nation - India. After independence the builders of modern India worked with a vision - to lay the infrastructure for rapid industrialisation of the country. The steel sector was to propel the economic growth. Hindustan Steel Private Limited was set up on January 19, 1954.

The Ministry of Steel and Mines drafted a policy statement to evolve a new model for managing industry. The policy statement was presented to the Parliament on December 2, 1972. This led to the formation of Steel Authority of India Ltd. The company, incorporated on January 24, 1973 with an authorized capital of Rs. 2000 crore, was made responsible for managing five integrated steel plants at Bhilai, Bokaro, Durgapur, Rourkela and Burnpur, the Alloy Steel Plant and the Salem Steel Plant. In 1978 SAIL was restructured as an operating company.

(The author is a trainer for Civil Services aspirants. The views expressed here are personal.)