The poor environmental performance of the iron and steel sector is a measure of the failure of the regulatory institutions in the country. Nobody is measuring and monitoring its actual performance, says CSE

While the iron and steel sector is known as the back-bone of the Indian economy, having made a substantial contribution to growth, it also among the worst industries when it comes to complying with environmental norms, reveals an analysis by Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), a Delhi based NGO, released on Monday.

CSE’s Green Rating Project (GRP) analyzed 21 top steelmakers in the country and found that the sector has not been complying with even the weak environmental norms and getting away easily due of lax regulatory and monitoring capabilities.
Bhushan Steels (Dhenkanal, Orissa), Monnet Ispat and Energy (Raigarh, Chhattisgarh), Jayaswal Neco Industries (Raigarh, Chhattisgarh), Steel Authority of India (SAIL)-Bhilai, Durgapur, Bokaro and Burnpur; Welspun Maxsteel (Raigad Maharashtra) were found to be the worst performers under the GRP.

The GRP analyzed 21 companies from iron and steel sector with over 0.5 million tonnes of annual capacity on more than 150 parameters including technology, process efficiency, pollution, occupational health and safety and compliance, etc. The project spanned over the period of two years.

While the overall sector received a 19% GRP mark, only three companies of the total 21 scored over 35% marks and were termed as ‘average’ under GRP. They were Ispat Industries, (Raigad, Maharashtra), Essar Steel (Hazira, Gujarat) and Rashtriya Ispat Nigam (RINL or Vizag Steel from Visakhapatnam).

The CSE also pulled up public sector major SAIL for non-transparency and non-compliance. Only SAIL Rourkela participated, while SAIL Bhilai, Durgapur, Bokaro and Burnpur did not participate. They were rated on the basis of available information and were found to be poor in meeting the norms.

However, according to media reports SAIL has rejected the CSE’s findings.
Sunita Narain, director general, CSE says that, “On the eve of World Environment Day, the steel sector rating is a reminder of the challenges, but also the enormous potential of bringing about change.”

She adds, “The poor environmental performance of this sector is a measure of the failure of the regulatory institutions in the country. Nobody is asking this sector to improve its green bottomline. Nobody is measuring and monitoring its actual performance. We should not be surprised.”  

The GRP rating exercise also found that that the iron and steel sector’s energy consumption of 6.6 GCal/tonne is about 50% higher than the global best practice and their process water consumption, excluding power generation, townships and other downstream operations, is a high 3.5 m3/tonne—over three times the global best practice.

“The large-scale plants were found to be highly wasteful on land. They have close to 1,200 hectares (ha) of land per million tonne of installed capacity; a well-designed plant does not need more than 200 ha. If all the residual land with steel plants were to be properly utilised, the industry can produce more than 300 million tonnes steel, not the 75 million tonnes it is producing today. In fact, the steel industry will not need extra land till 2025,” CSE found.

Chandra Bhushan, CSE’s deputy director general and head of the Green Rating Project, points out, “The iron and steel sector’s score is the lowest compared with the other sectors that the GRP has rated previously. In fact, the steel sector not only has the worst pollution compliance record, it was also found to be highly non-transparent and poor on information disclosure.”

He further said, “The future road map for the sector is clear. It will have to reduce its ecological footprints drastically, invest in health and safety of its workers and treat local communities as stakeholders and beneficiaries.”