India’s steel consumption to fall by around 10% and steelmakers’ sales volumes to shrink around 6% in the 12 months to March 2021, said Moody’s investors service in a report.
Indian Railways freight loading has surpassed last year’s level after falling in April during the first month of lockdown, signalling revival in the construction, agriculture and power sectors in the economy as majority rakes moved were of coal, cement, iron, steel, food grain and fertilisers.
Union Minister Nitin Gadkari said the government is making efforts to attract FDI in infrastructure sector to address liquidity crunch faced by the COVID-19-hit economy.
CIL’s coal allocation under special forward e-auction for the power sector declined 28.7% to 4.74 million tonnes in the first quarter of the ongoing fiscal, official data showed. Coal India Ltd (CIL) had allocated 6.65 million tonnes (MT) of coal in April-June period of the last fiscal, according to coal ministry data. Coal allocation by the firm under the scheme declined to 0.64 MT last month, from 0.88 MT in June 2019, the data showed.
According to the Ministry of Steel, the country’s crude steel production at 6.8 million tonnes in the month of June was 17.7% higher over May, 2020, but on a year-on-year basis it was lower by 27.2% over June 2019.