New Delhi, Aug 21 (KNN) Keeping its commitment to address every problem and bottleneck of the ailing steel industry and achieve the target of 300 Million Tonnes Per Annum (mtpa) capacity by 2025, Ministry of Steel is organising a one day conference with the focus on secondary steel producers on Saturday.
 
The one day conference on ‘Roadmap to 300 Million Tonnes: Opportunities & Challenges for Secondary Steel Producers’ will he organized on August 22, 2015 in Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi.
 
The Union Finance Minister, the Minister of Corporate Affairs and the Minister of Information and Broadcasting Arun Jaitley will inaugurate the conference in the presence of the Union Minister of Steel and Mines Narendra Singh Tomar.
 
“Our Government is fully committed to address every problem and bottleneck of the ailing steel industry and achieve the target of 300 Million Tonnes Per Annum (mtpa) capacity by 2025,” Tomar has reiterated addressing senior industrialists and officials at earlier occasions. 

The steel production landscape across the globe is largely dominated by blast furnace based integrated steel producers who make steel using the basic ore. However, In India, the contribution of this route of steel making is low at around 45 per cent only and majority steel (55 per cent) is produced adopting the electric steel making process using steel scrap or from sponge iron produced in-house or purchased.
 
While some of these units are very large, of the order of several million tonnes, most of the units are small, of the order of a few thousand tonnes to a few lakh tonnes per annum and conventionally known as mini steel plants. These are mostly Electric Induction Furnace (EIF) and/or Electric Arc Furnace (EAF).
 
Besides the steel producers, there are a large number of steel processing units viz. Steel Re-Rolling Mills, Cold Rolling Mills, Galvanizing Units and Colour Coating units which produce value added steel from purchased/ imported semi-finished / finished steel inputs. In trade and commercial parlance, all steel producers and steel processors are classified under broad category ‘secondary steel sector’. 

It is for the very first time that a conference exclusively for the secondary steel sector is being organized under the aegis of the Ministry of Steel jointly with FICCI and JPC.
 
The conference aims to look at the readiness of the secondary steel producers to reach this target and the issues and challenges they foresee therein.
 
Accordingly, CEOs/ Chairmen of all concerned associations namely, Sponge Iron Manufacturers Association (SIMA), All India Induction Furnace Association (AIIFA), Steel Furnace Association of India (SFAI), All India Steel Re-Rollers Association (AISRA), Steel Re-rolling Mill Association (SRMA), Sihor Steel Re-rolling Mills Association (SSRMA), Steel Wire Manufacturers Association of India (SWMAI) as well as CEOs/ CMDs of well-known companies have been invited for their participation in the conference. 

The conference will serve as a good platform for the steel producers in the secondary sector to identify the right set of opportunities and discuss around solutions to the issues faced. The conference reiterates the strong commitment that the Ministry of Steel accords to the secondary steel producers in the country. (KNN Bureau)