New Delhi: A seminar on Promoting Awareness and Usage of Steel Slag was
jointly organised by the Ministry of Steel and the Federation of Indian
Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) in New Delhi today. The seminar was attended by representatives
from the Ministry of Steel, Ministry of Rural Development, Ministry of
Environment and Forest, Ministry of Railways, Ministry of Road Transport and
Highways, Indian Road Congress, National Rural Roads Development Agency,
Central Road Research Institute, National Highways Authority of India, Public
Works Department, Central and State Pollution Control Boards, Indian Council of
Agricultural Research, Bureau of Indian Standards, National Council for Cement
and Building Materials as well as by International Slag companies and
consultants from USA, Europe and Australia. Experts from various sectors which
could benefit through steel slag usage such as cement, construction,
infrastructure, railways, agriculture and steel, attended the seminar.
The objective
of the seminar was to stimulate discussion among various key stakeholders
including the Government, policy makers, industry leaders, steel manufacturers
and end-user segments from India, to illustrate existing and possible
applications of iron and steel slag, and to highlight its suitability and
effectiveness in replacing natural materials.
Steel slag is
a co-product generated during the steel making process. It is used as an
aggregate in many industries, with a high rate of adoption globally, especially
in the United States, the European Union, China and Brazil. Its high abrasion
resistance, soundness characteristics, high bearing strength and basicity make
it suitable to be used as ballast for railways as well as in road making as a
replacement for natural aggregate, in cement making, in agriculture for soil
amelioration, in paver blocks & bricks, and also as an alternative to
landfills. This necessitates that proper procedures, regulations and guidelines
be formulated in India for the testing, processing and usage of slag. The
seminar has been a useful platform to bring regulators as well as stakeholders
from various industries together to work towards this.
Stating that
the industry needed to now look at time-bound outcomes on the utilization of
steel slag, G. Mohan Kumar,
Secretary, Ministry of Steel, Government of India, said, “There should be a
paradigm shift in our approach. We need a sustained effort on what is possible
and today is a beginning. It is gratifying to see such an overwhelming response
to the need to address the utilization of steel slag. The industry needs to
come together on this issue, and I hope that the sparkling discussions in the
technical sessions result in something concrete.”
Vishnu Shankar Prasad, Secretary General, Indian
Roads Congress said, “There is a need to have
collaborative research in the country to identify applications of steel slag
across sectors. The roads sector in India, being the world’s largest, has the
highest capability to absorb industrial co-products such as steel slag, while
also addressing costs of road construction. There is a need to have a
mission-mode approach to bring all stakeholders to the same platform to discuss
optimized ways to utilize this co-product.”
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