Thursday, November 3 2005 15:53 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: The Government today (Nov 3, 2005) gave its approval to the National Steel Policy, which aims at hiking production to over 100 MT and making Indian steel industry globally competitive in terms of cost, quality and product mix.

Announcing this, Information and Broadcasting Minister S Jaipal Reddy told reporters here that the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) has cleared the NSP, which envisages that India should have a modern and efficient steel industry of world standards catering to diversified steel demand.

To render the domestic steel industry globally competitive, it was imperative to augment indigenous production to more than 100 million tonnes per annum by 2019-20 from the 2004-05 level of 38 million tonnes per annum, which implied a compounded annual growth of 7.3 per cent per annum, he said.

"The NSP seeks to adopt a multi-pronged strategy to move towards the long-term goal. On the demand side, the strategy would be to create an incremental demand through promotional efforts, creation of awareness and strengthening the delivery chain, particularly in the rural areas," Reddy said.

On the supply side, the strategy would be to facilitate creation of additional capacity, remove procedural and policy bottlenecks in the availability of inputs such as iron ore and coal, make higher investments in research and development and human resource development and encourage the creation of infrastructure such as roads, railways and ports, he added.