Performance of Government-Owned Steel Companies
There are two steel manufacturing Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) under the administrative control of Ministry of Steel, namely, Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) and Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (RINL). The revenue generated by SAIL and RINL during the last five years is given at Annexure-I.
The steel industry witnessed severe downturn globally with demand slowdown, overcapacity, cheaper imports, variations in coking coal prices coupled with higher interest charges on borrowings and higher depreciations which impacted the realisations of the companies during 2015-16 to 2017-18. The companies subsequently reduced their losses and earned some profit in 2018-19. During 2019-20, SAIL remained in profit but RINL incurred losses partly due to slowdown in demand for long steel products of the company.
Steel is a deregulated sector and the role of the Government is that of a facilitator. The Government has taken various measures to facilitate growth of the domestic steel industry viz. notified Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Amendment Act, 2015, thereby streamlining grant of Mining leases, changes in peak rate of custom duty on steel and levy of safeguard duties, notifying Anti-dumping duties on steel products and issuance of Steel Quality Control Orders to stop non-standardized steel import and manufacturing, etc.
This Information was given by the Union Minister for Steel Shri Dharmendra Pradhan in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha today.