PLI scheme: Govt to launch again for steel sector on Jan 6

The government will launch another round of production-linked incentive scheme for the steel sector on Monday 6 Jan ’25. The 'PLI scheme 1.1' will be launched by the steel minister H D Kumaraswamy. "Union Minister of Steel and Heavy Industries... will launch 'PLI scheme 1.1' for the steel industry and call for applications... on January 6," the steel ministry said in a statement.

To encourage domestic production of specialty steel and lower imports by drawing in capital investments, the government had earlier introduced the PLI scheme for specialty steel.

The scheme has attracted investments worth ₹27,106 crore, envisaging creation of 14,760 direct employment opportunities with an estimated production of 7.90 million tonnes of specialty steel.  As of November 2024, companies have already invested ₹18,300 crore and generated over 8,660 in employment.

The government has been interacting regularly with the participating companies and based on feedback, it was felt that there was a scope to notify the scheme again to attract more participation, the statement said.

The concept of Production-Linked Incentives (PLI) was conceived during the Covid-induced global lockdowns of 2020, emphasising the need to boost domestic manufacturing. Initially launched for three sectors, the PLI scheme was later extended to include steel in November 2020.

Speciality steel is still one area where more is needed to be done. The government brought a PLI to incentivise the manufacturing of speciality steel but the offtake of the sops was not as expected, the government had earlier said. Speciality steel is a high-grade product used in sectors like defence, automobile, and electrical, among others.