Draft names neither Mandi Gobindgarh nor Ludhiana, yet plans to shrink induction furnaces to 15%, says KBS Sidhu in letter to Union Steel Minister
Chandigarh, 18 October 2026 (Yes Punjab News)
Responding to the draft National Steel Policy: Vision 2047, released by the Union Ministry of Steel a week ago, KBS Sidhu, former Special Chief Secretary, Punjab, said today that Punjab hardly figures in it. The draft does not once name Punjab, Mandi Gobindgarh or Ludhiana. Yet, he pointed out, it quietly assumes that the induction-furnace route, the backbone of Mandi Gobindgarh, will shrink from about 38% of national output to 15% by 2047.
KBS Sidhu has taken up the matter in D.O. letter No. 1919, sent today to Union Minister of Steel and Heavy Industries Shri H.D. Kumaraswamy, with copies to the Governor of Punjab, the Chief Minister and the Chief Secretary. He said the planned contraction is buried in an assumption beneath an Annexure table, with no transition path, modernisation window or cluster programme for the units that would bear its brunt.
The draft, open for comments until 30 October, also overlooks Tata Steel’s scrap-based electric arc furnace at Hi-Tech Valley, Ludhiana, commissioned in March 2026, KBS Sidhu said. Designed for under 0.3 tonnes of CO₂ per tonne of steel, the plant already beats the draft’s national target of 1.54 tonnes for 2047. Nor does the draft note that the National Institute of Secondary Steel Technology (NISST), which it cites repeatedly for skilling, stands at Mandi Gobindgarh.
“Punjab is a land-locked border State with no iron ore, no coal and no public-sector steel plant. Its steel industry was built by private enterprise and the skill of its workforce. It asks for no tax concession. It asks for a place in the plan,” KBS Sidhu said.
The letter annexes 17 Punjab-specific proposals, all within the Centre’s competence. Among them:
■ A pilot Secondary Steel Transition Cluster for the Mandi Gobindgarh–Khanna–Ludhiana belt, with a common facility centre for ladle refining and BIS-accredited testing at Mandi Gobindgarh.
■ Capital support or interest subvention for induction-furnace units that upgrade or convert to electric arc furnaces.
■ NISST upgraded into the northern Centre of Excellence.
■ A northern scrap balance, so that Ludhiana’s new arc furnace and Gobindgarh’s induction furnaces are not left bidding against each other. Railway and defence scrap should come in lots small units can afford.
■ A steel terminal on the Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor at Ludhiana, and mini-rakes for scrap, DRI and billets into Mandi Gobindgarh.
■ A facilitation cell at Ludhiana to help exporters of fasteners, hand tools, bicycles and auto parts meet Europe’s carbon border tax.
KBS Sidhu has also asked the Ministry to hold one stakeholder consultation at Chandigarh or Mandi Gobindgarh before finalising the policy. “The secondary steel units of the north rarely find their way to consultations in New Delhi. A day in their midst would give the policy the sense of place it now lacks,” he said.
Nationally, the letter flags the absence of a 2047 raw-material balance sheet, notably for coking coal, 92% of which is imported.
Click Here to Read Letter to Union Minister
• • •
KBS Sidhu, IAS (retd.), superannuated as Special Chief Secretary, Government of Punjab. He is Founder-Editor of The KBS Chronicle and Convener of the Shiromani Punjab Forum.
Contact: kbs.sidhu@gmail.com · 7837-001-001
FOLLOW NOW
