New Delhi, Aug 13 (KNN) The Government proposes to notify several steel products having direct bearing on human health and critical to housing, construction and infrastructure under the mandatory Certification Marks Scheme of Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) which inter-alia warrants that all the notified products must conform to the relevant Indian Standards, the Parliament was informed.
 
This inter-alia would regulate production, sale, distribution and import of sub-standard steel products. The proposed steel quality control order also provides that there will be appropriate authorities for effective enforcement of the Order, Minister of State for Steel and Mines Vishnu Deo Sai provided this information in reply to a question in Rajya Sabha. 

In India, steel is produced by integrated steel plants and a large number of mini steel plants adopting electric arc furnaces and electric induction furnaces.
 
According to information available from Joint Plant Committee (JPC), Kolkata, there are 11 integrated steel plants, 42 electric arc furnaces (EAF) based mini steel plants, 1247 electric induction furnaces (EIF) based mini steel plants and 1630 re-rolling mills. Further, according to information available from BIS, as on date, BIS has granted 2357 licenses to manufacturers of various steel products for use of BIS Standard Mark.
 
Details of manufactures who have not applied to BIS for licenses are not available with BIS, the Minister said. 

The Government has so far notified 15 steel products under two steel quality control orders. Further, the Government has proposed to notify two more quality control orders covering additional 16 non alloy steel products and 3 stainless steel products respectively. (KNN Bureau)