It appreciated the political philosophy of the incumbent government regarding PSM's re-operationalisation considering it has national strategic value for being the country's primary steel manufacturing plant and making it operational again would help much in large scale manufacturing (LSM) increasing growth and would also serve the need of downstream industry.
The committee weighed various options to restart PSM and observed that the Blast Furnaces have been adversely damaged primarily due to abrupt closure of supply of natural gas in 2015. Due to this, it is estimated, the major capital repairs, including replacement of two blast furnaces, is the major cost component of repairs and replacement of plants and equipment of PSM.
The BDC thrashed out the issue of repairs required for each and every unit of the PSM to restore one million tons per year production and also extending it to 3 million tons in view of spiralling steel demand in the country.
It also discussed required rehabilitation of the plant for bringing it back to the initial production capacity and for that the BDC also weighed various options regarding resources to be referred to ECC for consideration. The hiring of CEO and CFO on urgent basis and the offers from various parties desiring to participate in rehabilitation of PSM also came under discussion.