Steel backbone

Mumbai : In any developing country, hungry for construction and infrastructure and industrialisation, the sector that is possibly the most crucial is steel. This has been known for decades; there is a reason why, even in the Nehruvian era, India pushed for steel plants.

Demand for steel rises by about 10 per cent a year; by government estimates, that might rise to 12 per cent per annum. Indeed, when the recent disappointing industrial growth figures are decomposed, we discover that only steel is propping up the IIP. Without steel, growth would have been lower even than it was. Yet the industry is suffering massive supply side constraints.