India’s Ministry of Steel has prepared a draft framework for setting up “Steel Clusters” or hubs of ancillary units for production of value-added steel products, a government official said on Thursday, November 21.
The official said that the proposed policy would see construction of two kinds of clusters - one for ancillary and downstream production of steel products, which will include manufacturing units engaged in customization and steel services. The other will be for production of value-added steel products like carbon steel, and alloys including stainless steel and special steels.
The clusters would enable production units to focus on achieving economic scales without focusing on supporting infrastructure, as the government will offer common and shared infrastructural facilities to all the units, the official said.
The government would also offer funding for setting up such clusters, including costs of supporting common infrastructure and would also set up specialized agencies in each cluster to offer marketing and technological support to units in these hubs, to enable such units to achieve sustainable growth, the official added.