Govt announces Rs 8,000 cr revival package for IISCO

New Delhi, May 25 (UNI) The Ministry of Steel has drawn up an ambitious revival package for the Asansol-based Indian Iron and Steel Company (IISCO) in West Bengal, after the Government finally approved its merger with the Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL).

Talking to newsmen on the completion of the UPA Government's two-year term at the Centre, the Steel Minister Ram Vilas Paswas said the revival package will also enable SAIL in acheiving greater heights as a global steel player, while making the IISCO plant go in for a large scale modernisation, upgradation and expansion.

Apart from this, it would also help SAIL to have direct access to IISCO's various captive mines and would automatically enable it to increase its production simultaneously reducing the cost of production.

Responding to a question on Kulti's revival plan, the Minister said there is no plan with the Government to revive this closed unit.

He revealed that his Ministry is setting up a Virtual Centre 'Steel Research and Development Mission' (SRDM) at Hyderabad as an autonomous registered society.

The objective of the SRDM is to revitalise existing centres of Research and Development, developing appropriate technology for cost effective production of quality steel and to identify, evolve and undertake basic and applied research of national importance in the iron and steel sector.

The SRDM is to be implemented in mission mode with initiative from the industry and active involvement of scientists and technologists, he said.

Mr Paswan said an initial corpus of Rs 50 crore has been provided from the Steel Development Fund (SDF) towards this project.

He said the Ministry had earlier set up an Expert Group for formulating guidelines for preferential grant of mining leases for iron ore, manganese ore and chrome ore by state governments.

Formulation of such guidelines is one of the policy to augment iron ore availability to the long term to meet the steel production targets set in the policy for 2020, Mr Paswan said.

The Ministry received its recommendations in August last year and its various recommendations were being considered, he said.

He said the National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC) acheived its highest ever profit before tax of Rs 2,770 crore due to the rationalised pricing policy which resulted in a Rs 1,200 crore profit increase in 2005-06.

Mr Paswan said the Government has already cleared the expansion proposal of Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd (RINL) of its plant at Visakhapatnam for increasing the liquid steel capacity from the existing level of 3 Million Tonnes (MT) to 6.3 MT at an estimated cost of Rs 8,692 crore, and the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has already laid the foundation stone for the project, he added.

The SAIL has made an ambitious corporate plan to increase its technological capabilities and production capacity from 12 MT to 22.5 MT by 2012 at an estimated investment of Rs 35,000 crore, he added.

UNI BKS PV DB1906