Punjab attracted investments of over Rs 5,400 crore in the steel sector over the past year, positioning the state as an emerging steel hub in North India.Industry leaders and the state government attribute the surge to Punjab’s proximity to high-demand markets and policy incentives. The state has two major steel clusters at Mandi Gobindgarh and Ludhiana.Mandi Gobindgarh houses around 300 units, including furnaces and rolling mills and accounts for a significant share of India’s secondary steel market. Ludhiana, with its large base of textile, auto parts, bicycle and hand tool units, has strong downstream demand for steel.Among the major investments, JSW Steel has committed Rs 1,500 crore for a plant at Rajpura. Tata Steel has set up a unit in Ludhiana with an investment of Rs 2,600 crore. Vardhman Special Steels is investing Rs 342 crore in Ludhiana, while AISRM Multimetals Private Limited has announced an investment of Rs 1,003.57 crore at Jaspallon village.Mahinder Pal Gupta, president of the Furnace Association, Mandi Gobindgarh, said the sector was witnessing a shift towards green and special steel. Scrap-based production is gaining ground due to the availability of recyclable metal.Industry and Investment Promotion Minister Sanjeev Arora said rising demand for specialty and auto-grade steel, competitive power tariffs and single-window clearances have attracted investors. He said global focus on decarbonisation had further boosted scrap-based steel production in Punjab.“The demand for specialty steel and alloy and auto grade steel is rising in the automobile and engineering clusters. With a global focus on green steel and decarbonisation, scrap-based steel production in Punjab is gaining traction from big steel manufacturers, who already have coal-based integrated steel plants in other parts of the country,” he said.Competitive and stable industrial power tariffs, critical for energy intensive electric arc furnaces, a strong policy push and investor facilitation through progressive industrial policies and single window clearances were attracting steel producers to the state, he added.
