STEEL MINISTER REVIEWS 2001-02 PERFORMANCE
OF SAIL
The Steel industry
in India has suffered due to adverse global market conditions
and Steel Authority of India Ltd. (SAIL) was not an exception.
However, the coming up of the market would help the company to
achieve a turn-around during this fiscal, said the Chairman, SAIL,
Shri Arvind Pande, in a meeting taken by the Minister for Steel,
Shri Brajaj Kishore Tripathy, here today to review the performance
of SAIL during 2001-02.
The Minister
asked SAIL to take all possible steps during this year to reduce
its net loss of Rs.1707 crore of the last fiscal. There has been
a short-fall in a number of areas of the MOU targets and total
sales during the year was only Rs.15502 crore, 4.5 per cent less
than the previous year. Net sales realisation was also disappointing.
He asked SAIL to exploit full potential of the export market and
improve domestic market to raise its sales turnover.
The Minister
was happy to know that the company has increased its 4th
quarter sales of the year by 13.9 per cent over the corresponding
period of the previous year. SAIL plants have improved their techno-economic
parameters like energy consumption, coke rate and refractory consumption.
Reduction of costs by Rs.452 crore during the year was also a
commendable effort. The company has been successful in paying
all debt obligation on time. The Minister asked SAIL to continue
its efforts to separate more employees through VRS and to expedite
its restructuring process.
