India’s Ministry of Steel has discussed the possibility of setting up a pilot plant for production of cold rolled grain-oriented (CRGO) steel, entailing an investment of about $80 million through collaboration of state-owned steelmaker Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (RINL), Indian research center National Metallurgical Laboratories (NML) and the Ministry of Steel, industry sources said on Monday, April 24.
While no official confirmation is available, the sources said that a meeting was held under the aegis of the Ministry of Steel last month which discussed the outlines of a collaboration for such a pilot project.
Despite several efforts to start production of CRGO steel over the past several years by government-owned and private sector steel companies, not much headway was achieved towards this and the country continues to be dependent on imports for this critical steel input for the electrical equipment manufacturing industry, the sources said.
The sources said that a detailed project report on a pilot CRGO steel production plant has been prepared by a designated consultant and approval of the report by the steel ministry is awaited before the collaboration arrangement between the three parties may be formalized.