India’s Ministry of Steel will undertake a ‘multi-pronged’ marketing and promotional push for greater usage of steel in the government program to build 30 million affordable housing units across the country, a government official said on Friday, October 21.
The government official said that, to spur demand for steel, in the first level, the Ministry of Steel would interact with its counterparts in the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development for greater usage of steel in government-funded projects and promote it as a superior construction material compared to cement and plastics.
At the second level, the ministry would push government-owned steel mills like Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) and Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (RINL) to beef up its sales and marketing departments, particularly in rural markets, for greater supplies of appropriate grades of steel for the housing construction sector, the official added.
While the steel ministry has not yet worked out the incremental demand stemming from the expected higher usage of steel products in government housing projects, the official said that the move was aimed at boosting the poor consumption rate of steel over the past few months.
According to government data, consumption of finished steel in India was up a mere 1.4 percent during the April-August period this year to 33.75 million mt, compared to the corresponding period of the previous year.