Ministry of Steel is facilitating an Industry driven institutional mechanism namely Steel Research & Technology Mission of India (SRTMI), to facilitate joint collaborative research projects in the iron & steel sector in India. The salient features of SRTMI are as under:-
SRTMI is an industry driven initiative which has been setup as a Registered Society wherein Ministry of Steel is a facilitator.
- SRTMI will be governed and administered by a Governing Body comprising the steel CEOs, Domain Experts and a representative of Ministry of Steel.
- The executive functioning of SRTMI will be carried out by the Director, SRTMI, who will be assisted by a suitable/appropriate supporting structure.
- The participating companies shall pay an initial entry fee @ Rs. 25/tonne of crude steel produced during 2013-14, or, Rs. 5 Cr., whichever is higher, to facilitate the creation of SRTMI.
- Initial corpus for setting up of SRTMI is Rs. 200 crore of which 50% is to be provided by Ministry of Steel and the balance by the participating steel companies.
The R&D investment of the leading steel companies in India in terms of percentage of their turnover ranges from 0.05 to 0.5% vis-à-vis 1-1.5% in leading steel companies internationally. Some of the steel companies have also formulated their R&D masterplans to increase their R&D expenditure to 1% of their turnover. The objective of SRTMI is to promote R&D investment in the Indian steel sector.
This information was given by Minister of State Sh. Vishnu Deo Sai in reply to a question in Lok Sabha today.