New Delhi: India has become the second largest steel producer in the world with its annual production reaching a historic 120 million tonnes, Union Steel Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia informed the Rajya Sabha on Monday.
He also said that India aims to double its steel production to 300 million tonnes per annum by 2030. "There has been a doubling in the last eight years of steel production in the country, which has been historic and which is why we have become the second largest steel producer in the world today," he said during the question hour.
The Union Minister also said that in 2013-14, we had only close to about 60 million tonnes per annum production of steel, we are today at 120 million tonnes adding that that in terms of capacity the country only had 75 million tonnes whereas currently it has 154 million tonnes.
Scindia noted that it is very important that India continues on this trajectory of growing capacity of steel production because we have a tremendous amount of infrastructure projects. "Therefore, it is our target, that by 2030 we intend to double our steel production from 150 to 300 million tonnes," he added. Scindia said Steel Authority of India (SAIL) too will be a part of that.
"SAIL's current capacity is 19.6 million tonnes and we are going to grow SAIL's capacity to 33 million tonnes by 2030 and Bokara Steel plant's capacity is 4.6 million tonnes, which will go to 8.6 million tonnes," he added.
