Vision, innovation, reengineering at steel seminar

25 Feb 2021 CW Staff

With domestic availability of iron ore and cost-effective labour, India has been a major player in global steel manufacturing. The country has overtaken to become the world’s second largest steel producer. The Prime Minister has announced an investment of Rs 100 trillion into infrastructure over the next five years. This plan dovetails well with the National Steel Policy, 2017, which envisages 300 MTPA of production capacity by 2030-31. The current manufacturing capacity is around 112 million tonne.

Given the high degree of investments being made to improve our country’s infrastructure, it is vital that the raw materials used in these projects, the manufacturing and construction processes deployed, do not compromise on standard quality protocols.

FIRST Construction Council virtually organised the “Make in Steel Forum 2021” on 24 February 2021. The conference was structured along the theme ‘Steel sustainability & resilience for a post-Covid society’, and included four sessions focusing on the government’s vision, innovation in steel, growth in stainless steel, and re-engineering.

The panel discussions were further followed by the Make in Steel Awards 2021 that recognised and rewarded India’s Fastest Growing Steel Companies. The winning companies were selected on the basis of their six year annual performance of growth in sales and PAT with higher weightage given to the most recent years.

For the full coverage of the discussions, click here.

Infrastructure Transport

12 Mar 2026

Kavach 4.0 Commissioned on Delhi–Mumbai and Delhi–Howrah

"Kavach version four has been commissioned on 1,452 route km, covering the high density Delhi–Mumbai and Delhi–Howrah corridors. The rollout included laying 8,570 km of optical fibre, installation of 1,100 telecom towers, deployment of trackside equipment over 6,776 RKm and establishment of 767 station data centres. Trackside implementation has been taken up on 24,427 RKm covering Golden Quadrilateral, Golden Diagonal and High Density Network sections. The programme aims to strengthen signalling and train protection on key routes.Kavach is an indigenously developed automatic train protecti..

Railways Advance Kalyan–Murbad Line And Mumbai Capacity Expansion

"Indian Railways is advancing multiple rail infrastructure projects in Maharashtra, including the sanctioned Kalyan–Murbad new line and sizable investments under the Mumbai Urban Transport Project and the Mumbai–Ahmedabad High Speed Rail project. The Kalyan–Murbad 28 km new line has been sanctioned at Rs 8.36 billion (bn) on a 50:50 cost-sharing basis with the Government of Maharashtra and has been declared a Special Railway Project for land acquisition; proposals covering 214 hectares are at various stages of acquisition. Budgetary outlay for projects falling fully or partly in Maharash..

Parliamentary Panel Flags Funding Gaps in Heavy Industries

"The Department-Related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Industry (Rajya Sabha) presented its 332nd report on the Demands for Grants 2026-27 of the Ministry of Heavy Industries (MHI). Figures converted from crore and lakh are expressed in million (mn). The Budget Estimates 2026-27 for the Ministry stand at Rs 79,399 mn against a projected requirement of Rs 94,843.2 mn, a shortfall of about 16 per cent, with revenue at Rs 79,370.8 mn and capital compressed to Rs 28.2 mn from Rs 5,020 mn.The committee flagged recurring BE-to-RE compression and declining revised estimate utilisation, and calle..