RS. 181.5 CRORE FOR R&D IN IRON AND STEEL SECTOR

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The Government of India in July 1997 decided to spend upto Rs. 150 crore per annum from Steel Development Fund (SDF) to supplement Research and Development activities in the iron and steel sector. An empowered committee under the Chairmanship of the Secretary, Steel was constituted in February 1998 with members from steel plant, academic institutions and national research laboratories for the approval/review of the research projects, both for public and private sector.

The empowered committee has met six times during the intervening period and approved 27 research projects of Rs. 181.5 crore including SDF component of Rs. 90.76 crore. Out of this, Rs.59 crore has so far been released and four projects have been completed with satisfactory results. The completed projects have benefited the industry in terms of energy efficiency improvement in secondary steel sector, online generation of operating parameters in continuous casting machine to ensure quality product, assisting engineering institutions to design steel based construction and reducing cost of production of high tensile steel. In the meantime two other projects have been completed and are under examination.