Muthuraman urges govt to provide land for steel plants

Jamshedpur, Nov 14 (UNI) Indian Institute of Metals(IIM) president and Managing Director of Tata Steel B Muthurraman today focussed on the technology, raw materials and steel designing to elevate India as a steel giant in the the international market.

Addressing the three-day 44th National Metallurgists' Day (NMD)and 60th Annual Technical Meeting (ATM), organised by IIM in association with Tata Steel here Mr Muthuraman stressed the need for upgrade the technology and a concrete policy on raw materials security as well as proper designing of steel.

He said India needed expertise and technocrats in the steel sector to compete with the top players in the international arena.He said the key to China's success within short span of time was the presence of huge number of skilled and trained technorcrats while Inidia was lagging behind in producing adequate numbers of experts.

He also urged the government to chalk out a long-term plan instead of go for a shortcut policy and to provide adequate land for setting up steel plants. ''At least two greenfield steel plants should come up in every year,'' he observed saying the governmet should formulate land acquisition policy.

Mr Muthuraman also demanded proper security in the field of raw materials and emphasised to increase research and development facilites.

Minister of State for Steel Akhilesh Das said the government was sincere about formulating a national steel policy and the production of steel would touch about 100 milion tonnes by 2019-20.

He said the metallugists could play an important role in enhancing the production of steel.

R A Mashelkar, Director General,CSIR, praised the IIM for playing a catalytic rle in the advancement of study and practice of science and technology of metal and alloys for the benefit of metallurgists and materials scientists.

He said knowledge and innovations play a key role for an all round development in industrial development.

Lauding the role of Tata Steel for industrial growth in the country,Dr Mashelkar said the next year's centenary celebrations of Tata Steel should be observed as Steel Jubilee.

About one thousand delegates took part in the NMD and Annual Technical meeting of IIM.

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