Ministry efforts reduces imports

Steel Ministry’s efforts have resulted in iron and steel orders worth Rs.8,129 crore with local mills from June 2017 to October 2018, reducing imports.

Railway Ministry, ONGC, GAIL, EIL and HPCL have placed orders with domestic iron and steel manufactures for various categories of rails, pipe and tubes which were earlier imported.

Discussions are on with Railway Ministry to increase consumption of rails manufactured indigenously either through SAIL or other domestic manufactures, according a Steel Ministry release on 9 Nov 2018.

In order to give preference to domestically manufactured iron and steel products (DMI&SP) in Government procurement, the Steel Ministry promulgated a Policy, which was notified on 8th May 2017.

To ensure that the Policy is implemented in letter and spirit, a Standing Committee under the Ministry chaired by Steel Secretary has been constituted to oversee its implementation.

A Grievance Committee has also been constituted to carry out grievance redressal which may arise while implementing the DMI&SP Policy.

The Steel Ministry organized a Conclave in Bhubaneswar in October this year for domestic manufacturers of capital goods meant for the steel sector.

In this Conclave MoUs worth Rs.39,400 crore were signed between foreign capital goods manufacturers and technology providers with Indian capital goods manufacturers and steel producers.

This will result in the manufacturing of capital goods for the steel sector within the country in the next 4 years.

This is a major shot in the arm for the ‘Make in India’ initiative of the Government of India, said the release. fiinews.com