The country’s crude steel output decline 14% to 8.65 million tonne (MT) during March 2020 against 10.04 MT of crude steel during the same month a year ago, according to a report by the World Steel Association. India has been observing a nationwide lockdown since March 25, which has impacted production, demand and supplies of steel in the country.
In March 2020, the global steel output was also down by 6% to 147.05 MT as compared with 156.51 MT in March 2019.
The renewable energy capacity addition fell short of its target for 2019-20, adding only about three-fourth of the target for the fiscal. As against the capacity addition target of 11,802 MW for 2019-20, the renewable energy sector added only about 8,711 MW, or about 74%. In 2018-19, the sector added 8,432 MW of new capacity to the grid.
Fitch Ratings said India’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth will slip to 0.8% for the year April 2020 to March 2021 (FY21) as compared to an estimated 4.9% growth in the previous fiscal. Growth is, however, expected to rebound to 6.7% in 2021-22.
Considering the pandemic Covid-19, Indian Railways has further announced a slew of incentives for freight customers. The incentives will make customers register their demands for goods electronically instead of going to goods-shed physically, thus making it a convenient, speedier and transparent process. These incentives are expected to boost the economy by aiding the country’s export, as per a statement by Railways.
Western Coalfields Ltd has launched a roadmap to achieve beyond 75 million tonnes of output by FY its contribution towards the ambitious 1 billion tonnes target of parent firm Coal India. The roadmap – Mission 100 Days was started on April 20, 2020.
WCL achieved an output of 57.64 million tonnes (MT) in FY2019-20, surpassing the target of 56 MT.
India is planning to bring ‘avoidable coalimports‘ to zero by 2023-24 amid abundance of fuel stock due to subdued demand by the power sector in the wake of the coronavirus-driven lockdown, according to a source.
The government is planning to reduce the avoidable coal import by 25-30% in the ongoing fiscal, the source said.