India's steel imports to rise by 33%: Tata Steel MD

India's steel imports during the current fiscal is expected to increase by 33 per cent to 8 million tonnes over last year, said B Muthuraman, Managing Director, Tata Steel.

Speaking to reporters in Bangalore on Friday at a CII organised event on manufacturing in India, he said: "Exports are always taking place, but imports are much more than exports. As a result, we are a net importer of steel products, which is very sad. Last year, we (India) imported 6 million tonnes because we don't have enough capacity to meed demand. This year we will import 8 million tonnes, (an increase of 33 per cent over last year), because demand is growing definitely much faster than supply."  

"Demand exceeds supply in finished steel. The country will continue to import steel. India needs to have huge capacity for manufacturing steel and we should not go by temporary blips in the economy to plan for the future in capacity building. Our future for steel in India is very very very good," he said, adding that India must plan for 300-400 million tonnes of steel production per annum.

India currently produces 34 million tonnes of steel and according to National Steel Policy, it is estimated to touch 110 million tonnes by 2011-12.

According to Muthuraman, delays in land acquisition, allotment of captive raw materials and inadequate infrastructure continues to affect the expansion of steel industry capacities.

"We are still facing a huge mismatch in demand and supply of steel and new capacity expansions are delayed beyond industry expectations," he noted. 
 
He said new capacity is not coming up in India sufficiently.

"We need new capacity and the government will have to support new capacity creation. Otherwise, we will keep on importing more and more steel. The government has to support in terms of quick land acquisition, allotment of captive iron ore mines, creation of infrastructure," he said.
 
Speaking on Tata Steel expansion plans, Muthuraman said that they have plans for expanding at Jamshedpur, Kalinganagar and Chhattisgarh.

"Our capacity at Jamshedpur will go up from the present 7 million tonnes per annum to 10 million by 2010. All that is happening very well in Jamshedpur because it is a brownfield expansion. Our greenfield expansions are delayed because of delay in land acquisition and government approvals, iron ore mine allotment at Kalinganagar," he said.
 
The company is in the process of acquiring land in Chhattisgarh and getting prospecting licence for iron ore. "There are delays here also," he added.