India has marked a rise in crude steel production by 4.3% to 8.91 MT in February 2019 compared to last year's same period's 8.54 MT. However, it is lower by 2.9% compared to January 2019.
Besides, output of hot metal was up by 12.1% at 6.09 MT in February 2019, against 5.43 MT in February 2018, while it was down by 4.4% over January 2019. The output of pig iron grew 16.9% to nearly 5,26,000 tonne in February, compared with about 4,50,000 tonne in the same month a year ago.
State-run Steel Authority of India, Rashtriya Ispat Nigam along with private firms Tata Steel, Essar Steel, JSW Steel, and Jindal Steel and Power produced 5.40 MT and the remaining 3.50 MT came from the other producers.
Meanwhile, India has set an ambitious target of increasing its crude steel production capacity to 300 million tonne by 2030-31.