Iron and Steel Industry in India

In this short review, it, is not proposed to discuss
the production of iron and steel in ancient India--
the subject has been Well covered in many excellent
papers such as by Mr. S. K. Nanavati in his Presid-
ential address before the Annual General Meeting of
the Indian Institute of Metals (1958). In different
hills and jungles, the Adibas,is are still extract-
ing iron in a very crude form. However, with the establishmentof iron and steel industry along modern
lines,the decline of such village industry has been
very rapid. The general pattern of iron and steel
industry in India has undergone considerable changes
under the planning and development that have taken
place during the Second Five year Plan. By the comp-
letion of the Second Five Year Plan, the ingot steel
capacity is expected to increase to six million tons
per annum and this is likely to be stepped up to six-
teen million tons per anumn by the end of the Third
Five Year Plan. It is well known that India posse-
sses immense reserves of high grade iron ores (more
than twenty thousand million tons. Although India
possesses huge reserves of coal estimated at about
forty thousand million tons down to a depth of two
thousand feet, only a small fraction of it -hardly
about fifteen hundred million tons can be classed
as good metallurgical coal from which coke for blast furnace high grade can be produced. A concentrated
drive for the conservation of metallurgical coal is therefore all imperious necessity. The use of good
coking coals in railway locomotives, steam-raising boilers, etc.,is wasteful and must he urgently checked.
New locomotives are therefore being designed to operate
on lower grades of coals. Electrification of the rail-
ways is being contemplated which should further reduce
the demand for metallurgical coal. It is expected that
as a result of changes in the design of locomotive boilers, the railways which use about 4.7 million tons
of coking coal annually, will use progressively more non-coking coals releasing large tonnages of coking coal for metallurgical use. The recent policy of export of high grade metallurgical coal has also to be rationally examined.