ABSTRACT
Steel remains largely a localized industry, dependent on the local availability of raw materials. It can be in a flat shape, like the plate, or may be a long product in the form of a bar. The steel plants which produce flat products are necessarily larger in scale because larger scale is needed when casting and rolling out flat and wide sheets. The Indian steel industry expanded by leaps and bounds in the 1980s, on the might of the electric steelmaking route. But the cost of scrap grew steeply on the increased demand for scrap from India, and it was then that the steelmakers in the electric route manipulated the induction furnace for making steel. Skill shortages appear to be the greatest crisis that the steel industry is set to face. A formidable problem of steel, wherever it is produced, is sustainability. There are many kinds of sustainability, namely, financial, resource, operational, ecological and environmental.
