Posted on 04 Mar 2008
"The Minister will meet leading steel producers
tomorrow to discuss the reasons behind the increasing demand-supply gap in the
steel sector and take stock of their mega expansion plans. Paswan is also
likely to discuss the bottlenecks impeding fructification of major investments
in the country as we are envisaging an investment of Rs 2,80,000 crore by
2011-12," a top steel ministry official said.
The meeting assumes importance as the ministry has also
asked the concerned secretaries of mineral-rich states of Orissa, Jharkhand,
Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal to be present to
apprise themselves of the issues raised by the steel makers and share their
views on achieving the envisaged investments, the official said.
This meeting is besides the Inter-Ministerial Group (IMG)
set up by the government and being headed by Steel Secretary Raghav Sharan
Pandey to extensively delve into investment related issues.
"The minister is particularly concerned that the
demand-supply gap has caused 67 per cent rise in steel imports," the
official said.
Steel consumption in India is growing at nearly 12 per cent
and in view of the anticipated growth in infrastructure and manufacturing sectors,
the demand is further likely to grow by 14-16 per cent during the next few
years. During April-December 2007, domestic steel demand grew at 12.2 per cent
over the same period of previous year.
