India's Ministry of Steel has released a report entitled ‘A Roadmap for Research & Development and Technology for Indian Iron and Steel Industry', indicating the main problems in the domestic steel industry.
According to the report, the reasons behind the unsatisfactory performance of the Indian steel industry, especially in the areas of technology and research and development are obsolete technologies and lack of timely modernization, and insufficient R&D investment.
The ministry aims to increase the R&D investments from the present level of 0.15-0.25 percent of sales turnover to at least one percent of total turnover by 2015-16 and two percent by 2020. It also considers further streamlining of R&D investments in the steel industry through incentives and lays emphasis on phasing out obsolete production facilities.
The report outlines some measures that could be taken, including improving the quality of basic input, raw materials, developing alternate iron making technologies suitable for indigenous raw material, working on alternative energy sources for integrated steelmaking, reducing generation of waste in all stages from mining to steelmaking, and focusing on technologies to reduce water consumption in steel plants.