Centre taking steps to increase production of green steel to cut carbon footprint: Minister
As part of its efforts to increase green steel manufacturing in the country, the Ministry of Steel has awarded two pilot projects to produce Direct Reduced Iron (DRI) using 100 per cent hydrogen in vertical shafts and one pilot project to use hydrogen in an existing blast furnace to reduce coal consumption and cut the carbon footprint, the Parliament was informed on Friday.
The Ministry of Steel has been allocated Rs 455 crore for the implementation of pilot projects for the use of green hydrogen in the steel sector till FY 2029-30 under the National Green Hydrogen Mission launched by the Ministry of New & Renewable Energy, Minister of State for Steel Bhupathiraju Srinivasa Varma told the Rajya Sabha in a written reply to a question.
Central public sector enterprises under the Ministry of Steel are also collaborating with eminent technology providers such as BHP from Australia, SMS from Germany, Primetal Technologies from the United Kingdom, John Cockerill India Limited from Belgium, Ram Charan Company Pvt Ltd, Chennai, the National Centre of Excellence in Carbon Capture and Utilisation of the IIT, Bombay and the Great Eastern Energy Corporation Ltd. to promote low carbon steel production, the minister further stated.
Besides, the Ministry has released the Taxonomy for Green Steel to provide standards for defining and categorizing the low emission steel.
It has also come out with a report titled "Greening the Steel Sector in India: Roadmap and Action Plan" in alignment with the recommendations of the 14 Task Forces constituted by this Ministry for this purpose which provides the future roadmap for green steel and sustainability, towards net-zero target by 2070.
In answer to another question, the minister said that India and Japan engaged in discussions on key areas of collaboration within the steel sector, focusing on economic trends, industry developments and global challenges impacting both nations. The talks covered the current state of the steel industry in India and Japan, information on India's Quality Control Orders, the effects of overproduction by some countries and cooperation on capacity-building programmes.
There is already an existing Memorandum of Cooperation between the Indian Ministry of Steel, and Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) to promote cooperation in the steel industry between the two countries. However, as the steel sector is deregulated, the steel companies take investment decisions based on the commercial interest without involvement of the government, the minister added.
