Employment in Steel Industry

The Minister of State for Mines, Steel and Labour and Employment, Shri Vishnu Deo Sai has said that steel is a deregulated sector. As per available information, crude steel production capacity is gradually increasing and the same has increased from 51.17 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) in 2005-06 to 99.57 mtpa in 2013-14 resulting generally in increase in number of employment opportunities.  As number of steel factories/plants in the country is quite large, the details about increasing employment opportunities in private sector are not maintained in the Ministry of Steel.

In a written reply in the Lok Sabha today, Shri Vishnu Deo Sai has said that as regards public sector, modernisation and expansion plans have already been launched in Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) for increasing the steel making capacity from 12.8 mtpa to 21.4 mtpa and Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (RINL) has recently completed its expansion from 3.0 mtpa to 6.3 mtpa. RINL is further implementing modernisation schemes which would further add 1.0 million tonne capacity by 2016-17.  These plans envisage several new facilities involving latest technology resulting in demand of additional technical and skilled manpower. 

Details of direct employment generated (recruitment) in SAIL and RINL during each of the last three years are as under:-

The Minister said that for encouraging value addition and growth of steel sector, Government increased export duty on iron ore from 20% to 30%. Similarly, export duty on chrome ore was raised from Rs.3000/t to 30% ad valorem and import duty on flat steel increased from 5% to 7.5%.  Besides modernization and expansion of existing plants of SAIL and RINL, NMDC Limited is setting up a 3 million tonne per annum Greenfield Integrated Steel Plant at Nagarnar, District-Bastar in Chhattisgarh.  All such measures would lead to generation of employment in the steel sector.