Mineral production goes down in 2014-15

At a time when the government is pushing for 'Make in India', mineral production is estimated to have significantly decreased in 2014-15 compared with 2013-14.

Together, 12 major minerals in the fuel and metallic category, under direct control of the Union government, showed a 11 per cent fall. These being coal, lignite, petroleum, natural gas, bauxite, chromite, copper, gold, iron ore, manganese, zinc and lead.

Coal production fell to 541.2 million tonnes in 2014-15 from 563.1 mt in 2013-14. Bauxite output is estimated to have decreased to 20.2 mt from 21.6 mt in 2013-14. Iron ore, imperative for the steel industry, which is facing a global slowdown, fell 15.3 per cent, after rising 12 per cent in 2013-14.

Chromite, copper, manganese, zinc and lead had a big production fall of 29 per cent, 19 per cent, 16 per cent, 12 per cent and eight per cent, respectively. Barring lead, the other four, in that order, had in 2013-14 risen by 0.7 per cent, 12.3 per cent, 10.5 per cent and 5.4 per cent. In value terms, lignite, chromite and gold showed a sharper decline than their volumes, indicating a fall in prices. For coal, petroleum and natural gas, the decline in value was same to that in volumes. "The decline in mineral production (in FY15) is largely due to stagnant growth in end-use industries. For this reason, the decline is across a broad range of commodities," said Kameswara Rao, leader (energy, utilities and mining), PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Global mineral consumption was less the year before, with China leading the reverse charge. Also, India's raw material prices did not decrease in equal proportion to international prices, making our industries less competitive. As a result, finished products were imported in huge amounts. "The competitiveness of end-use products is impacted, to, resulting in higher imports of final products and, to a lesser extent, raw materials," added Rao.

In FY14, mineral production fell in miniscule quantities for only lignite, natural gas, petroleum and zinc. The first three showed a similar miniscule production fall in FY15, too. Zinc saw a production fall of almost 11.5 per cent. Zinc and lead concentrates showed an increase in value realisation despite fall in production. Bauxite had a negligible fall in value, though there was almost a seven per cent fall in production.