India’s Ministry of Steel: Bigger R&D budget needed for local steel industry

India's Ministry of Steel has stated that the Indian government should attach greater importance to research and development (R&D) in the domestic steel industry in the 2012-17 period.
 
The ministry has suggested that a budget of INR 4.5 billion should be allocated for R&D in the domestic steel industry in 2012-17, over four times the budget of of INR 1.111 billion in 2006-2011.
 
PK Mishra, the secretary general of India's Ministry of Steel, stated that the low levels of R&D investment in India has resulted in increased imports. For example, due to the lack of fine ore mining technology, many raw materials need to be imported into India. Furthermore, it is expected that Indian fine ore consumption will increase from the current 40 million mt to 100 million mt by 2015.