Access to Knowledge on Industrial Energy Efficient Technologies

Iron and Steel

Steel is one of the most prominent metals, which has been playing a very dominant role in industrial developments well as economic and strategic growth of any economy. As a result of its exceptionally high strength and formability properties, steel is used in every aspect of our lives including automotives, rails, whitegoods, ships, energy structure and many more. It is also the most prominent building block of our houses, constructions, and infrastructure. Globally, 1874 million tonne (MT) of steel was produced in 2019 and India was the second largest steel producer with its total crude steel production of 111 MT. With its total production of 37 MT in 2019, India is also the largest producer of sponge iron in the world. The steel industry directly contributes slightly more than 2% to the GDP of the country. The indirect contribution is much more. The Indian steel industry employs nearly half a million people directly and about 2 million people indirectly. During 2019–20, India was the net exporter of steel and the total import and export during the year were 7.164 MT and 11.18 MT, respectively, with net export of approximately 4 MT.

Pulp and Paper

India’s first modern paper mill was set up in 1832 at Seerampur, West Bengal using the mechanized process for paper making. Since then, the Industry has seen two distinct phases of development. Before liberalization of economy, the sector was operating under a controlled regimen where the market was essentially driven by by local demand and controlled prices as well as production. Even then, the industry, driven by a young nation of a knowledge based growth continued to expand and grow in size and volume to clock a CAGR of almost 8% across almost a decade. After delicencing, the growth rate for some time exhibited a 10% growth. However, at this time, the industry started to face problems due to raw material availability causing the growth rate to slow down. In the mean time, many agro based mill shifted to use of recovered paper for paper making.