Crude steel output up 3.6 pc to 9 MT in March

India's crude steel output grew 3.6 per cent to 9.07 million tonne (MT) during March 2018, according to official data.

The country had produced 8.76 MT crude steel during the same month a year ago.

SAIL, RINL, TSL, Essar Steel , JSWL & JSPL together produced 5.46 MT and the rest came from other producers, Joint Plant Committee said in a report.

The data shows state-run SAIL's contribution to the country's overall output during March increased to 1.40 MT from 1.27 MT in the year-ago period.

RINL's output rose 23.9 per cent to 0.472 MT as against 0.381 MT in March 2017.

Tata Steel Ltd (TSL) registered a marginal fall of 0.7 per cent to 1.132 MT as against 1.140 MT in the year-ago month.

Essar Steel Ltd (ESL), Jindal Steel (JSWL) and Jindal Steel and Power (JSPL) registered a rise of 6.2 per cent and together produced 2.45 MT as against 2.31 MT.

Empowered by Ministry of Steel, Joint Plant Committee (JPC) is the only institution which collects data on the Indian iron and steel industry.

According to World Steel Organisation (worldsteel), India outstripped Asian industrial giant Japan to become the second largest steel producer as its steel output grew 3.43 per cent to 8.43 MT in February against 8.29 MT of the latter.

In May last, the Cabinet approved a new policy that aims to achieve steel making capacity of 300 MT by 2030 with an additional investment of Rs 10 lakh crore.

It also approved a policy for providing preference to domestically manufactured iron and steel products in procurement by the government and its agencies.