Question

Why is the survival of the mini steel plants in India threatened at present?

Answer 1

Mini steel plants helped in many times when there was steel shortage. But now India is self-sufficient in the iron supply, this is because SAIL is being run more effectively and liberal import policy is preventing the serious scarcity problems and hence major steel plants have no threat of shortage of steel making. Apart from this, government policies have led to increase the cost of raw material especially that of steel scrap. Import duty on scrap has grown from nil in 1979 to 20 per cent today. Erratic supply of power and increase in power tariff have aggravated the problem.