Government's policies saved foreign exchange worth 34,800 crores; India ranks second in steel production

Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said foreign exchange worth Rs 34,800 crore has been saved due to the policies of the government. Scindia pointed out that imports in the steel sector have been reduced and Rs 34,800 crore has been saved and a capacity of about 60 million tonnes (MT) of crude steel has been added.
The Steel Minister said that India has now become the second largest steel producer in the world, surpassing Japan, which is the second largest steel producer in the world.
Talking about the figures, Scindia said that the country's steel capacity has increased from 109.85 MT in 2014-15 to 160.30 MT in 2022-23 with rapid growth of 46 percent. He said that the total production has increased by 42 percent from 88.98 MT to 126.26 MT.
Scindia pointed out that the per capita consumption of steel also increased from 60.8 kg to 86.7 kg during the same period, registering a growth of 43 percent.
As per the National Steel Policy 2017, the country aims to increase the capacity to 300 MT and production to 250 MT by 2030-31. While the target is to increase per capita consumption to 160 kg.
Let us tell you that the government had launched the Production Linked Incentive PLI scheme with an outlay of Rs 6,322 crore to promote domestic manufacturing of special steel.
Scindia pointed out that in the last 9 years, the units under the steel ministry utilized Rs 90,273.88 crore of their own resources for capital expenditure (capex) and paid a dividend of Rs 21,204.18 crore to the government.