Indian Steel Ministry Announces Draft Policy on Steel Scrap

SEATTLE (Scrap Monster): The Ministry of Steel under the Government of India has announced publication of the draft steel scrap policy. The policy is open for comments from stakeholders until July 14^th. It is aimed at curtailing the country’s dependency on steel scrap imports and make India self-sufficient in high-quality ferrous scrap.

The policy is aimed at setting up environmentally sound management system for ferrous scrap. It encourages organized ferrous scrap processing and recycling by metal scrapping centres across the country. By this way, it targets to reduce the dependency on imported scrap and make the country self-sufficient in availability of scrap. It aims to promote circular economy in the steel sector.

The draft, dated 28^th June, 2019, states that the Ministry or its appointed agency or other designated statutory bodies are responsible to ensure that the policy is implemented in line with state-of-the-art technologies. Further, the implementation must be in compliance with the applicable rules and regulations.

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It must be noted that there has been an increasing focus across the world to promote steel production using scrap as the raw material, since it results in significant savings of vital natural resources.

Ferrous scrap is the key raw material not only for secondary sector, but also for primary sector. Hence, increased availability of scrap will boost steel sector growth in the country, so as to help the country achieve its goal of 300 million tonnes per annum of steel production capacity by 2030, as outlined in the National Steel Policy (NSP).