Page 655 - ES 2020-21_Volume-1-2 [28-01-21]

282 Economic Survey 2020-21 Volume 2

8.26 India is the second-largest producer of crude steel only after China. India is also the second-
largest consumer of steel. However, its per capita total finished steel consumption was around
74.7 kg during FY20 as against the global average of 229 kg. Further, the capacity utilization in
crude steel plants continues to be low (Figure 20).

Figure 19: Production & Consumption of Figure 20: Capacity Utilisation
finished steel (Million Tonnes) Steel Plants
130 84
120
110 82
100
80
90
80 78
70
60 76
50
74
40
FY14 FY15 FY16 FY17 FY18 FY19 FY20 FY21* 72
Finished Steel Consumption
Crude Steel FY14 FY15 FY16 FY17 FY18 FY19 FY20
Finished Steel Production *Apr-Nov 2020
Source: Survey calculations based on Ministry of Source: Survey calculations based on Ministry of
Steel’s data. Steel’s data.

8.27 Recently, the GoI has taken various initiatives under the Atmanirbhar Abhiyan to enhance
the domestic production of steel such as inclusion of ‘Speciality Steel’ incorporating four
different product categories for incentives under the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme;
offering steel to MSMEs that are members of Engineering Export Promotion Council at export
parity price under the Duty Draw Back scheme of DGFT; measures to provide preference to
domestically produced iron and steel in government procurement, where aggregates estimate of
iron and steel products exceeds ` 25 crores; protecting the industry from unfair trade through
appropriate remedial measures including imposition of anti-dumping duty and countervailing
duty on the products in which unfair trade practices were adopted by other countries.
Coal

8.28 Coal is the one of the most important and abundant fossil fuel in India. It accounts for
55 per cent of the country’s energy needs. Coal is not only the primary source of energy in
the country but is also used as an intermediary by many industries such as steel, sponge iron,
cement, paper, brick-kilns, etc.

8.29 In the FY20, the production of raw coal in India was 729.1 million tonnes (MnT) with
a minuscule growth of 0.05 per cent over the previous year (Figure 21a and 21b). In FY21
(April-October), all India coal production was 337.52 MnT, thus declining by 3.3 per cent YoY.
The contraction in production is attributable to COVID-19. India is also an importer of coal