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Employees work inside a steel factory in Agartala, capital of Tripura July 1, 2010.Reuters file

Steel stocks such as Tata Steel, JSW Steel, Welspun, state-run SAIL, Jindal Stainless and Maharashtra Seamless are likely to gain on Thursday in response to bullish projections made in the National Steel Policy 2017 that was approved by the Indian government on Wednesday.

Among the key features, India's steel-making capacity is projected to reach 300 million tonnes and production 255 million tonnes by 2030, for which the sector would need an additiional investment of Rs 10 lakh crore, the government said in a statement. The impetus is expected to come from a spike in steel consumption by housing, automobile and infrastructure sectors. 

This will see the per capita consumption of steel go up from the current 60 kg to 160 kg by 2030.

India's steel production crossed 100 million tonnes last fiscal.

The policy has a clear tilt towards "Make in India". 

"The policy also envisages to domestically meet the entire demand of high grade automotive steel, electrical steel, special steels and alloys for strategic applications and increase domestic availability of washed coking coal so as to reduce import dependence on coking coal from about 85% to around 65% by 2030-31," the statement read.

The National Steel Policy 2017 also calls for setting up a Steel Research and Technology Mission of India (SRTMI) to boost local R&D efforts, in addition to leveraging the strengths of existing institutions.

Outlining the significance of the sector for the economy, the statement said, "The Indian steel sector has grown exponentially over the past few years to be the third largest producer of steel globally, contributing to about 2% of the country's GDP and employing about 5 lakh people directly and about 20 lakh people indirectly."

The top three steel producers of the world are China, Japan and India.

In 2016, global steel production rose 0.8 percent to 1,628 million tonnes, with China accounting for 808.4 milllion tonnes, or 49.6 percent, of the total world output.

Japan produced 104.8 million tonnes while India's crude steel production was 95.6 million tonnes, an increase of 7.4 percent over 2015. South Korea produced 68.6 million tonnes of crude steel in 2016, marking a decrease of 1.6 percent when compared to 2015.

For the steel industry, the global growth rate is expected to rise from 1 percent in 2016 to 1.3 percent (to 1,535.2 million tonnes) this calendar year but slow down to 0.9 percent next year to 1,548 million tonnes, reflecting divergent trends worldwide, especially in China, which accounts for about 45 percent of world demand, according to the World Steel Association.

On Wednesday, Tata Steel closed at Rs 441, JSW Steel at Rs 193, SAIL at Rs 61 and Jindal Stainless at Rs 70.

The BSE Sensex closed 26 points down at 29,895 on Wednesday; the NSE Nifty ended at 9,308.