Union Minister of State for HRD D. Purandeswari on Sunday favoured a blanket ban on export of iron ore.
She was speaking after inaugurating an integrated steel plant at Sreerampuram village in L.Kota mandal in Vizianagaram district. The sponge iron plant earlier run by Goldstar Steel & Alloy Ltd (GSAL) was acquired by Steel Exchange India Ltd (SEIL) belonging to Vizag Profiles Group at a cost of Rs.150 crores. Later it was converted into an integrated steel plant with additional investment of Rs.150 crores.
The sick unit was revived by setting up a new rolling mill of 3,00,000 tonnes per annum (tpa) of re-bars and steel melting shop with 2,50,000 tpa billets to make it an integrated steel manufacturing hub. The rolling mill is equipped with producing TMT bars and wire rod coils.
The company now plans to set up a 60 MW power plant by using waste heat of kilns and coal char generated by sponge iron unit.
Responding to the demand for raw material security for medium, small and micro enterprises (MSMEs) producing steel, Ms. Purandeswari said she would convey the feelings to the authorities concerned in Delhi for suitable action. “I strongly feel that there should be a re-look at iron export policy,” she stated. She agreed that raw material security was the need of the hour and efforts should be made seriously to enhance India's steel production from the present 62 million tonnes per annum.
‘Focus on housing'
The Minister said the UPA Government was laying emphasis to housing and infrastructure sector to accelerate the pace of development. Admitting that the steel industry was devoid of insulation from recession, she said it did not feel the heat unlike IT sector during the market meltdown.
RINL-VSP Director (Finance) P. Madhusudhan, RINL former Chairman-cum-Managing Director Y. Siva Sagar Rao, SBI Managing Director S.K. Bhattacharya, Chief General Manager Shiv Kumar, S.Kota MLA K. Lalitha Kumari, SAIL General Manager Y.K. Reddy, SEIL CMD B. Satish Kumar, Vizag Profiles CMD B. Suresh Kumar and others were present at the meeting.
