New Delhi: The government plans to enhance the prestige of Indian-made products by introducing ‘Brand India’ label for steel products manufactured under strict quality control.
Steel Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said these products will set new benchmarks for reliability and quality and strengthen domestic manufacturing in line with the Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative.
Only products made on the standards of 13 sector-specific metrics prepared by the government and industry will get the Brand India label.
These metrics cover the production process, location, product design and quality standards for steel products.
“From August 2022, the Ministry of Steel in collaboration with the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) and QCI (Quality Council of India) is working on a roadmap to leverage the strengths of the Indian steel industry. ‘Made in India’ label on steel products for both domestic and export markets. As part of this effort, stakeholder consultations were conducted with major Indian steel plants to arrive at a consensus on planning criteria and QR code components for steelmakers,” Scindia said.
He said that state-owned SAIL and private sector manufacturer Jindal Stainless Limited would soon undertake a pilot initiative to manufacture these world-class steel products.
Once the pilot is completed, the government proposes to all local steel makers to join the initiative and promote Brand India Steel in the domestic and global markets.
“Ministry of Steel has invited other Indian steel plants to participate in branding of their steel products under ‘Made in India’ label scheme. QCI is facilitating smooth onboarding of these steel plants,” said the steel minister.
To integrate the technology platforms of SAIL and JSL with ‘Made in India’ label, the QCI team visited JSL Hisar plant and SAIL’s Bokaro plant. Both SAIL and JSL have now been successfully integrated with the Made in India platform. In addition to branding the steel industry, the Ministry of Steel is also working with stakeholders in the steel industry and government departments and ministries such as Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Power, Bureau of Energy Efficiency, New and Renewable Energy and Policy. Commission – to prepare a strategy to decarbonize Indian steel.
In line with India’s global commitments, Scindia said 13 key components have been identified as levers for the low carbon transition of the steel sector.
A task force has been constituted with participation of experts and industry to discuss, deliberate and brainstorm on each component and come up with actionable points.
Scindia said that after the success of the PLI scheme for special steel, where MoU was signed on March 17 for 57 applications from 27 companies, a new PLI 2.0 is being considered by the Ministry of Steel. It may be launched after consultation with stakeholders to finalize the products and categories to be covered under the scheme.
The government is looking at strengthening the steel sector to boost production needed to meet the fast-growing domestic demand and facilitate infrastructure development. As per the steel ministry’s estimates, by 2030-31, SAIL’s operational capacity for crude steel production will increase from the current 19.51 million tonnes per annum to about 35.65 MTPA.
SAIL has already achieved the all-time best annual production of 19.4 MT hot metal and 18.2 MT crude steel in FY 2022-23.
catch ’em all Industry News, banking news And updates on Live Mint. download mint news app to receive daily market update,