The Indian government's high-power inter-ministerial group (IMG) will be meeting on August 8 to discuss the country's likely failure to reach its steel production target of 145 million mt per year by 2015 owing to delayed greenfield steel projects, a steel ministry official said on Thursday, July 18.
The meeting is significant given that global steelmakers POSCO and ArcelorMittal have lately announced the scrapping of two greenfield projects planned for India owing to various delays, the official said.
On Wednesday, July 17, ArcelorMittal formally communicated to the government of the eastern Indian province of Odisha that the company has shelved plans for a 12 million mt per year steel mill in the province after a seven-year delay in acquiring land and raw material linkage.
Similarly, last week POSCO formally scrapped its plans for a 6 million mt per year steel mill in the southern Indian province of Karnataka after a four-year delay in acquiring land.
According to the steel ministry official, in addition to representatives of various ministries like coal, power, steel, mines and shipping, senior officials from all leading private sector and government-owned steel producers have been invited to the meeting to take stock of the situation.
The prospect of missing the 145 million mt per year target by 2015 is a major concern and embarrassment for the Indian government, particularly since a committee headed by the Indian prime minister earlier this month set a target of trebling domestic steel production to 300 million mt per year by 2025, the ministry official said. He pointed out that failure to achieve the 145 million mt mark will force India to import about 50 million mt of steel per year by 2015, up from the 8.36 million mt imported in 2012.