Union Minister of Commerce and Industry, while setting the target urged the industry leaders to focus on economies of scale through decarbonisation. He asked industry to:
- Innovate for low emission, high productivity and high quality.
- Use artificial intelligence (AI) to optimize production, reduce waste and improve efficiency across the value chain.
- Integrate indigenous machinery for domestic production.
Steel Sector in India
- 2nd Largest Producer of Crude Steel.
- Output of 125.32 MT of crude steel and finished steel production of 121.29 MT (FY23).
- Growth driven by:
- domestic availability of raw materials such as iron ore (fifth-highest reserves of iron ore)
- cost-effective labour.
- increased infrastructure construction and the thriving automobile and railways sectors.
- Accounts for about 12% of India’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions ( steel in world is largest carbon-emitting manufacturing sector)
Initiatives to decarbonise and promote steel sector
- National Steel Policy, 2017
- Steel Scrap Recycling Policy 2019,
- Perform, Achieve and Trade (PAT) scheme
- Task forces by the Ministry of Steel for developing a green steel roadmap.
- Production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme for specialty steel.
Green hydrogen-based route is the cleanest method of producing steel. However, green hydrogen is expensive and investing in the technology could render steelmakers uncompetitive. To support in transition Steel sector has been given special focus in the National Green Hydrogen Mission.
