"Automobile manufacturers are still importing a certain quality of steel which is not produced in India. The ministry is shortly going to set up a group to suggest modalities in this regard," Steel Secretary A K Agarwal said here.

Inaugurating a workshop on steel intensive buildings, Agarwal said there was a need for evolving project specific high quality steel, but at the same time this should be available to the consumer at a reasonable cost.

Stating that due to sluggish growth of economy, the growth of iron and steel industry was not to the extent projected, he said the present total installed crude steel capacity was around 33 million tonnes per annum.

"Of this, the capacity commissioned by new units in the post liberalised era was around six million tonnes per annum. Besides, an additional six million tonnes per annum capacity was in the pipeline and was expected to be commissioned by the end of the Ninth Plan Period," Agarwal said.During 1999-2000, among the steel producing countries, India ranked 10th and produced 26.71 million tonnes of finished steel, he said.

Agarwal said the share of private sector in the production of steel had increased from 51.4 per cent in 1991-92 to around 67 per cent in 1999.

"With the emerging technology and consumer requirement, there is a need for continuous improvement in the quality of finished products," he said, adding that in order to improve the consumption of domestically produced steel, continuous upgrading of technology is essential.

Though all major steel plants in the country are aware of this, requirement of huge investment was keeping the pace of modernisation slow, he said.

This puts an additional responsibility for evolving a reasonably priced and consumer-friendly quality of steel, Agarwal said.

He said that all the plants had become conscious of producing steel in an environment friendly manner and without causing any significant damage to the environment.

About 10 to 12 per cent of the cost of machineries for setting up of a steel plant is being invested in environment and pollution control related equipment, Agarwal said.