CHENNAI: The Institute for Steel Development and Growth (Insdag) may bring into its fold user units like construction companies in a bid to beef up the use of steel. Indicating this at a workshop on "Steel in Construction,'' here on Friday, Sajjan Jindal, President of Insdag, said the Institute had to bring users units on board as founder members rather than treating them as invitees.

The Ministry of Steel and major steel producers have jointly promoted the institute with the objective of improving the application of steel.

A combination of factors ranging from short supply of steel to the prevalence of the quota system until 1990 had seen steel yielding its position to cement, he said. "The onus is now on Insdag to promote steel as a medium of construction,'' he said.

Mr. Jindal said that as the GDP (gross domestic product) of a country grew, the steel consumption, too, rose. In this context, he pointed out how the steel consumption in China had gone up to 400 million tonnes from 100 million tonnes in the last ten years.

In the U.S., steel consumption had stayed at 125 million for over two decades now. "Once you reach a level, it never goes down. This can happen in India, too,'' he added. He was confident that India could reach a steel consumption level of 110 million tonnes by 2015, though the Ministry had set a time frame of 2020.

A. Ramakrishna, retired Deputy Managing Director of L&T, stressed the need for judicious use of steel and concrete to achieve cost efficiency. Pointing to the huge advantage in structural steel construction, he underscored the need for standardisation by building pre-engineered building items.

Addressing select presspersons later, Mr. Jindal regretted that there was no clear government policy vis-à-vis iron ore. He suggested the introduction of some sort of a `disincentive scheme' to discourage export of precious resources like iron ore. To a question, he said India could hit the 100 million tonne steel target by 2015 by the brown field route itself. Each of the ten large steel plants could become 10-million-tonne companies merely by expanding.

Mr. Jindal, who is the Vice-Chairman and Managing Director of JSW Steel Ltd., he said his company was looking at setting up a steel plant in Bolivia, which had huge iron ore deposits. "We have not still firmed up our plans,'' he added.

He also indicated that JSW Steel was considering setting up steel plants in Iran (which has gas and iron ore) and Mozambique (which has high quality coal).

The Salem plant of the company (taken over from LMW) would scale one million tonne capacity by the year-end, he said. He was confident that JSW Steel would become a 10-million-tonne company by 2010.

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