India can be in a position of advantage to place itself on top of the world’s industrial map and that is possible in the business of steel. The country has abundant high-quality iron ore, manganese, dolomite and chromites. It has the capability of generating enough electricity or heat to convert these raw materials into huge quantities of primary metal and finished steel. India already has the best iron-making know-how to produce the metal at a low cost. Steel-making is the next stage, which requires the help of a whole lot of modern technologies. There is no dearth of such know-how in the international market- Indian steelmakers are using them with success.

The steel industry lacks psychological push from the Government and the planners to exploit its full potential to emerge as a global leader and help the country earn large quantities of foreign exchange from exports and value-added products to pay for the imports of deficient key industrial inputs such as petroleum, naphtha, copper, zinc and even coal. India has also huge deposits of bauxite and lime stones, the key raw materials for manufacturing aluminum and cement, respectively.

Today, India produces hardly 50 million tons of steel per annum as against China’s output of some 400 million tones. Throughout this period and even later, India exported its precious iron ore cheaply to feed steel plants elsewhere, including China. This is unfortunate and could be even suicidal in the long run since the country does not have much of an option left to bank on to steer its economy in the face of a global oil crisis. A strong steel industry can still change the face of India the way it did in the United States, erstwhile Soviet Union and Japan in the last century as the world's fearsome military and economic powers. They were the world’s largest producers of steel, not petroleum, in the 20th century. It has changed the military and economic face of China, this century. China, the world’s second largest economy, is now the biggest steel producer. These economies were not built on petro-power, although Russia boasts one the world's biggest petroleum reserves. It was built on steel, which boosted their heavy engineering and construction industries, infrastructure development, the building of power plants, transmission towers, ports, airports, shipyards, automobile, oil rigs, drilling pipes and oil equipment, military hardware, etc.

Even now, it is not too late for India to replicate this time-tested global model to strengthen its steel sector by treating it as a strategic industry and according it all help to build it up fast so that the industry can play a stellar role in the economy. A ban on the export of iron ore, duty-free import of coking coal, priority allotment of natural gas alongside the fertilizer and power sectors, reduction of levies on raw materials and finished steel, removal of export duties and restrictions and giving an incentive package to the users of local steel for domestic projects may be some of the measures needed to be taken without delay. The Government must formulate without delay a comprehensive strategy for the steel and allied industries to sustain a high rate of economic growth and development in coming years in the face of a looming oil crisis.