Infrastructure and Energy Sector

[Chinmoy]

@Chinmoy is it feasible to make a underground tunnel for military transportaion across Brahmaputra.

No.... The geography of the region is too fragile to undertake such a project.

 

[republic_roi97]

@Chinmoy is it feasible to make a underground tunnel for military transportaion across Brahmaputra.

Alluvial soil, very deep and wide river. Something like that would be a very hard task.

 

[Chinmoy]

@Chinmoy is it feasible to make a underground tunnel for military transportaion across Brahmaputra.

Leave the tunnel. Cream on top of the pie and icing on top of the cake was, one jingo news channel mentioned that it could be used as a runway too. South China Post just lapped it up..

 

[Mikesingh]

Leave the tunnel. Cream on top of the pie and icing on top of the cake was, one jingo news channel mentioned that it could be used as a runway too. South China Post just lapped it up..

Why the fook would fighters want to land on a frikkin bridge when there are far better areas on the 4 lane highway in the area? These journos go berserk at times in their enthusiasm for sensationalism!! Jeeez!

 

[Chinmoy]

Why the fook would fighters want to land on a frikkin bridge when there are far better areas on the 4 lane highway in the area? These journos go berserk at times in their enthusiasm for sensationalism!! Jeeez!

Actually that might be what they wanted to say, but instead blabbered out that the bridge could be used for landing purpose. I am just amused at the SCP reporting it.

Sangat ka asar it seems..

 

[Mikesingh]

Check out how the Bogibeel bridge was constructed. Amazing automation!

 

[Why so serious?]

Ladakh will soon be home to world's largest solar plant
Sanjay Dutta | TNN | Updated: Jan 13, 2019, 08:08 IST

TNN
Two major solar plants are coming up in Ladakh and Kargil. The Ladakh project will be located at Hanle-Khaldo in Nyoma, a strategically important area 254km from Leh. The Kargil project will be built at Suru in Zanskar, 254km from the district HQ. The project will keep glaciers cool by saving 12,750 tonnes of carbon emission a year. Power from Ladakh will go to Haryana.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Ladakh is set to add another feature to its fame - the world's largest single-location solar photo-voltaic plant
• Another mega project will join forces to keep glaciers cool by saving 12,750 tonne of carbon emission a year
• The projects are expected to spur development in the remote border regions

NEW DELHI:

Ladakh
, known for its pristine natural beauty and colourful mountains towering over vast swathes of desolate land, is set to add another feature to its fame - the world's largest single-location solar photo-voltaic plant.


Some 200km to the south in

Kargil
, another mega project will join forces to light up the plains, keep glaciers cool by saving 12,750 tonne of carbon emission a year, remove dependence on diesel gensets and create livelihood for the local population that remains cut off for 6-8 months.

SECI

Solar Energy Corporation of India
)- under the

renewable energy
ministry - is promoting the projects in J&K on a scale matching the grandeur of their locations - 5,000 MW (mega watt) for the Ladakh unit and 2,500 MW for Kargil - to be completed by 2023 at an estimated investment of Rs 45,000 crore.

The Ladakh project will be located at Hanle-Khaldo in Nyoma, a strategically important area 254km from Leh. The Kargil project will be built at Suru in Zanskar, 254km from the district HQ. Power from the Ladakh project will flow to Kaithal in Haryana, for which a900-km line will be laid mostly along Leh-Manali road. The Kargil project will hook up with the grid at New Wanpoh near Srinagar. The bids offer flexibility and many firsts, like combining the plant and associated transmission lines, putting promoters in control who otherwise have to depend on another entity for transmission and suffer if evacuation routes are delayed.


We have addressed issues faced in previous tenders and taken into account the challenging geography," SECI director (power systems) SK Mishra told TOI.


Another positive is the Leh and Kargil administrations have designated 25,000 and 12,500 acres of non-grazing land, respectively, at prices "remunerative" for the hill councils, which will also earn rental of around Rs 1,200 per hectare per annum with 3% annual escalation. "Identification of land is a big relief for prospective promoters, who were gung-ho during a site visit in spite of the isolated locations and hostile weather," Mishra said.


The projects are expected to spur development in the remote border regions and empower the local population through skilling for jobs such as cleaning of solar panels and maintenance of transformers etc. Power minister RK Singh had in August last year said Ladakh has potential of hosting 25,000 MW.

 

[Indx TechStyle]

Bharatmala 2.0 to focus on expressways, add 4000km on greenfield roads

 

[Chinmoy]

Although this news is more concerned with IAF, but the civilian implication associated with it makes it suitable to post here too.

Arunachal villagers volunteer to repair aircraft landing strip for the Indian Air Force

The Indian Air Force (IAF) takes up the repairs of the Vijayanagar Advance Landing Ground (ALG) situated in Changlang district of Arunachal Pradesh on the border of Myanmar. This ALG is very critical to the people of the area in the absence of any motorable roads. This ALG has been closed to the fixed wing aircraft since 2016.

After getting approval from the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) in June 2009, the IAF embarked on an ambitious reconstruction plan to upgrade the existing eight ALGs, including infrastructure development at certain air-bases in Eastern Air Command’s (EAC) area of responsibility.

The ALGs for upgradation include Tuting, Mechuka, Along, Tawang, Ziro, Pasighat, Walong and Vijaynagar in Arunachal Pradesh. The outlay plan for the upgradation of ALGs alone is nearly Rs. 1,000 Crore.

Since it takes around 10 days to reach isolated Vijaynagar on foot through dense jungles, both the labour and the material will be airlifted. According to the IAF the place is not connected with any motorable road, and the ALG has not been fit for operations by fixed-wing aircraft since 2016.

“All the material and labourers have to be airlifted to Vijayanagar. The repair work involves cleaning of runway surface on which grass and moss had accumulated due to non-utilisation of the surface over a long duration. This task required a large number of people as it is manpower oriented.”

For the first time, people from 11 nearby villages from the local area of Vijayanagar came forward voluntarily help Air Force authorities to undertake this task by carrying out shramdaan.

The repair work by the specialised team has already commenced and the material is being transported to the ALG in phases.

Since 2016, the operational capability of the IAF has got a major fillip with the re-launching of two upgraded ALG at Ziro and Along in Arunachal Pradesh.

This capacity building has helped the IAF operations in the region by some of the new inductions including the C-130J Super Hercules. This has also helped in air maintenance as well helped in civil air connectivity.

According to a statement issued by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) in 2016, Vayudoot Airlines once operated from Ziro airfield in the mid-eighties. And the IAF has always operated a flying detachment from the ALG at Ziro for air maintenance purposes.

“The runway surface at Ziro saw a steady deterioration over a period of time due to lack of maintenance and other issues. Encroachment due to the absence of a security wall further added to the declining status of the airfield. There was, however, always a need to connect the beautiful valley of Ziro with rest of the country by air, for tourism as well as other purposes.”

The IAF took over the Ziro airfield from AAI in August 2010.

The ALG, at Along, prior to the upgradation was partly paved, partly grassy, and duly reinforced with perforated steel plates. Besides IAF, which operates all year round, Pawan Hans also operates helicopters from here during non-monsoon periods.

Since 2016, including ALGs at Ziro and Along, Mechuka, Pasighat, Tuting, and Tawang have since got upgraded with paved runway surfaces and other facilities such as aprons for ground manoeuvering, Air Traffic Control tower with associated infrastructure including perimeter road and a security wall.

The new runway surfaces and other infrastructures are being built to the exacting standards for any other modern airfield in the country. Runway length and width, wherever feasible, has been extended and will enable ATR class of fixed-wing operations in most of the ALGs.

https://www.financialexpress.com/de...nding-strip-for-the-indian-air-force/1451661/

 

[kunal1123]

Although this news is more concerned with IAF, but the civilian implication associated with it makes it suitable to post here too.

Arunachal villagers volunteer to repair aircraft landing strip for the Indian Air Force



https://www.financialexpress.com/de...nding-strip-for-the-indian-air-force/1451661/

Villagers Prevent IAF Chopper Landing At Vijaynagar In Arunachal Pradesh
2 minutes
SOURCE: PTI

Local residents of Vijaynagar in Changlang district of Arunachal Pradesh did not allow an Indian Air Force (IAF) helicopter to land at the Advance Landing Ground (ALG) today, state Food and Civil Supply Minister Kamlung Mossang said.
The locals spread across the ALG runway of Vijaynagar to prevent the landing in protest against the IAF chopper not carrying cardamom produced by them to Miao, Mr Mossang said quoting a former zill parishad member from Vijaynagar.

Residents of 11 villages near Vijaynagar on January 20 cleaned the ALG runway of the grass and moss which had grown due to non-operation by any fixed-wing aircraft since 2016.

The villagers claimed that they cleaned the ALG runway on condition that the IAF choppers which return empty to Miao from Vijaynagar would carry cardamom produced by them, the minister said.

The villagers said they pay Rs. 150 for transportation of cardamom to Miao, the nearest town which is about 157-km away due to lack of road connectivity.

No IAF officers were available for comment.

 

[Chinmoy]

Villagers Prevent IAF Chopper Landing At Vijaynagar In Arunachal Pradesh
2 minutes
SOURCE: PTI

Local residents of Vijaynagar in Changlang district of Arunachal Pradesh did not allow an Indian Air Force (IAF) helicopter to land at the Advance Landing Ground (ALG) today, state Food and Civil Supply Minister Kamlung Mossang said.
The locals spread across the ALG runway of Vijaynagar to prevent the landing in protest against the IAF chopper not carrying cardamom produced by them to Miao, Mr Mossang said quoting a former zill parishad member from Vijaynagar.

Residents of 11 villages near Vijaynagar on January 20 cleaned the ALG runway of the grass and moss which had grown due to non-operation by any fixed-wing aircraft since 2016.

The villagers claimed that they cleaned the ALG runway on condition that the IAF choppers which return empty to Miao from Vijaynagar would carry cardamom produced by them, the minister said.

The villagers said they pay Rs. 150 for transportation of cardamom to Miao, the nearest town which is about 157-km away due to lack of road connectivity.

No IAF officers were available for comment.

This was bound to happen if any such condition was laid. In one place IAF had to change the approach and departure route of Helis because locals protested against the strong down thrust of blades which made their thatch blow away.

 

[vampyrbladez]

Villagers Prevent IAF Chopper Landing At Vijaynagar In Arunachal Pradesh
2 minutes
SOURCE: PTI

Local residents of Vijaynagar in Changlang district of Arunachal Pradesh did not allow an Indian Air Force (IAF) helicopter to land at the Advance Landing Ground (ALG) today, state Food and Civil Supply Minister Kamlung Mossang said.
The locals spread across the ALG runway of Vijaynagar to prevent the landing in protest against the IAF chopper not carrying cardamom produced by them to Miao, Mr Mossang said quoting a former zill parishad member from Vijaynagar.

Residents of 11 villages near Vijaynagar on January 20 cleaned the ALG runway of the grass and moss which had grown due to non-operation by any fixed-wing aircraft since 2016.

The villagers claimed that they cleaned the ALG runway on condition that the IAF choppers which return empty to Miao from Vijaynagar would carry cardamom produced by them, the minister said.

The villagers said they pay Rs. 150 for transportation of cardamom to Miao, the nearest town which is about 157-km away due to lack of road connectivity.

No IAF officers were available for comment.

Bloody hell! IAF will now act as sabzi mandi transport!

 

[Chinmoy]

Bloody hell! IAF will now act as sabzi mandi transport!

Sabzi Mandi??? They do even work as local pick up service and transport system in specific areas.

Actually they have to. There is daily flight from Mohanbari IAF to these areas which act as courier and transportation. These are drop zones where people depend on these flights for day to day life activity. So you can't put blame on these people entirely.

Just a couple of days back, the Heli of AP Governer had to act as an ambulance service from Tawang to Itanagar.

 

[vampyrbladez]

Sabzi Mandi??? They do even work as local pick up service and transport system in specific areas.

Actually they have to. There is daily flight from Mohanbari IAF to these areas which act as courier and transportation. These are drop zones where people depend on these flights for day to day life activity. So you can't put blame on these people entirely.

Just a couple of days back, the Heli of AP Governer had to act as an ambulance service from Tawang to Itanagar.

I understand medical or food relief as part of the IAF's job but this is ridiculous. Tomorrow people will bring their cattle and want lift to nearby towns. Then there will be massive protests if some of their arbitrary demands are not met.

Charter some private service for these lines or get some local contractors to push the product. It will raise prices a bit and even give back to the farmers. No chance of hoarding as supply is through few , well monitored routes. Mind you we are talking of lots of kgs of cardamom not a few boxes. The fuel cost alone will not be worth it unless IAF is compensated under a govt. subsidy.

 

[Chinmoy]

I understand medical or food relief as part of the IAF's job but this is ridiculous. Tomorrow people will bring their cattle and want lift to nearby towns. Then there will be massive protests if some of their arbitrary demands are not met.

Charter some private service for these lines or get some local contractors to push the product. It will raise prices a bit and even give back to the farmers. No chance of hoarding as supply is through few , well monitored routes. Mind you we are talking of lots of kgs of cardamom not a few boxes. The fuel cost alone will not be worth it unless IAF is compensated under a govt. subsidy.

That you are not getting. Service was there in these routes, but because of negligence got cut off. Now on one hand establishment have made them dependent on others for survival and then cut them off from others. There is no road connectivity to places like these and so no private contractors of any sort or any other means. So the only way out as of now is IAF. Only after these places gets connectivity, there would be any other means available.

Once I too got stranded in one such location for more then a month time. The nearest town from where supplies are provided was 8 hours journey through road. But the frequent landslides make the road highly dangerous even to trek. So had to piggy back on a chopper to one of the ALG. From there again a day journey to the place I intended to go. From there again back to the ALG other day to piggy back on the chopper. But had to wait another day because of inclement weather.

In total, a journey which would have taken me just 16 hrs both way costed me 5 days. And do you know for what all these had to be done? A crate of eggs and vegetables. Now just imagine what these people have to undergo through.

Dubte ko Tinke ka sahara. And these IAF helis are Tinka for these people. They would go to any length to grab on to it.

 

[Flame Thrower]

Villagers Prevent IAF Chopper Landing At Vijaynagar In Arunachal Pradesh
2 minutes
SOURCE: PTI

Local residents of Vijaynagar in Changlang district of Arunachal Pradesh did not allow an Indian Air Force (IAF) helicopter to land at the Advance Landing Ground (ALG) today, state Food and Civil Supply Minister Kamlung Mossang said.
The locals spread across the ALG runway of Vijaynagar to prevent the landing in protest against the IAF chopper not carrying cardamom produced by them to Miao, Mr Mossang said quoting a former zill parishad member from Vijaynagar.

Residents of 11 villages near Vijaynagar on January 20 cleaned the ALG runway of the grass and moss which had grown due to non-operation by any fixed-wing aircraft since 2016.

The villagers claimed that they cleaned the ALG runway on condition that the IAF choppers which return empty to Miao from Vijaynagar would carry cardamom produced by them, the minister said.

The villagers said they pay Rs. 150 for transportation of cardamom to Miao, the nearest town which is about 157-km away due to lack of road connectivity.

No IAF officers were available for comment.

Setup a road connectivity.....2 lane road would be more than enough.

ALGs would also
need connectivity to transport fuel and ordinance in case of war.

So silly to discuss.... They're want some transportation facilities and people damn care what is transsporting their goods

 

[Indx TechStyle]

IRDAI: The key that can give India access to infra funds worth $4.5 trillion

One way to begin could be with government beginning a ‘risk fund’ that could comfort the insurance regulator in relaxing the rules.

India needs infrastructure to grow, but there’s hardly anyone to fund it.

Over the years, banks — the largest financial intermediaries — have slowly begun to withdraw from the segment after poorly structured financing, corruption, regulatory loopholes and judicial interventions inflicted losses that have held them back for nearly five years.

Alternative mode of finance — the bond market — is shallow and is yet to evolve, making it difficult for anyone with an idea to build a port or a power plant to find the financial resources.

That has led to the contraction of investments’ contribution in the gross domestic product growth to 29.2%in the second quarter ended September 2018, from 38.69%in 2012-13, when the growth engine was kept humming with huge credit from the banking sector.

The outstanding bank credit to the infrastructure sector which was at Rs 9.85 lakh crore in March 2016, after compounding an annual 39% for 15 years, fell to Rs 8.9 lakh crore in last fiscal as banks turned averse to infrastructure lending.

“Form a CASA (current account savings account) perspective, if infrastructure becomes a large part of a bank’s exposure, there are chances of asset-liability mismatch,” says Ramraj Pai, president at Crisil, a unit of Standard & Poor’s. Asset-liability mismatch arises if banks take oneyear deposits to lend for five years.

One of the reasons for banks’ infrastructure loans turning bad was that they mobilise one-year, or even shorter-term deposits for building power and road projects that took five years to build. This kind of funding became unviable for the projects and unjustifiable for banks.

Who could fund India’s future? Insurers could be the answer.

While funds that are lying with both banks and mutual funds — which form 48% of household savings with the financial services industry — are of short term in nature, it is the insurance companies which own funds for nearly two decades as individuals save for their retirement.

“There is a definite win-win situation if investment becomes a bit more open,” said Vineet Arora, chief executive at Aegon Life. “There is a mandate of putting money into infrastructure. If we get freedom to choose and increase the limit into infrastructure…. It is good if we can get a paper of 20-30 years, whether it is infrastructure or government securities. It helps us design our asset liability and that is why you see insurance companies globally being big investors in infrastructure.”

But that needs a sea change in the way the regulator looks at projects, especially the ones that take years to begin payments.

INVESTMENT RULES

Insurance companies, which are custodians of the nest egg of millions of middle class men, are guided by the rules laid down by the Insurance Regulatory & Development Authority of India (IRDAI) where prudence takes precedence over returns.

The IRDAI stipulates that life insurers invest 50% in government bonds, 35% in other approved securities and 15% in infrastructure firms. It prohibits companies from investing in bonds rated below AA.

That makes a substantial portion of the bonds outstanding in the market as no-go area for insurers. As far as top investment grade bonds are concerned, there are hardly any infrastructure companies. How does one solve the issue where one segment is crying for fund and the other that has it in plenty is unable to lend?

The regulator needs to relook at its investment guidelines.

“A combination of more sophisticated oversight to make sure that risks are not building up in the insurance sector, plus a greater degree of liberalisation has to happen because at the end of the day an insurance company is an asset manager,” says Jaideep Khanna, head of Barclays, Asia-Pacific. “As the insurance sector becomes more sophisticated, they should be offering different kinds of products and provide capital to fuel the growth of the country.”

While there is a need for making long-term funds available for long gestation projects, there is inherent worries about these projects and the returns associated with them.

“Many infrastructure loans that have turned sour have been covered by government guarantees,” said J Hari Narayan, the former chairman of IRDAI. “The government has not delivered on its guarantees. Banks can’t take on a government after it fails to honour the guarantee.”

ALL INFRA BAD?

Wild swings are part of the markets. Banks are no exceptions to exuberance and depression. The publicprivate partnership was peddled as the panacea for Indian infrastructure.

That led to influence peddling to win contracts that paid for generations without much equity. This led to excessive leverage that, in many cases, resulted in a company having a debtto-equity ratio of 10 times or even more. Furthermore, a large scale siphoning off of funds too made many projects unviable.

“We need to get the project appraisal done the right way,” RBI deputy governor NS Vishwanathan had told industry in 2016, when bad loans crisis had crippled banks. “Pricing of the loans should be commensurate with risk.”

Apart from unviable projects, the poor funding structure added to the woes.

A successful infra project could be like that of the Mumbai-Pune Expressway, that was conceived in the 90s and commissioned in 2002. Despite cost overruns, it was completed for Rs 1,630 crore. Sixteen years later, the project is being bid out at Rs 9,000 crore for another 15 years of toll collection.

Roads and other infrastructure assets may not be viable at early stages, since they do not generate much cash to service debt, but in the long run most of them turn viable with financial engineering.

Canary Wharf, the world’s biggest financial district in London that sank Paul Reichmann’s Olympia & York, is a testimony to how infrastructure projects even after going kaput can come back to life with increased economic activity.

NEED TO CHANGE

On paper, the regulator has mandated insurers to invest 15% in infrastructure. But the purpose is getting defeated in the absence of relaxation of rating requirements for investments. These firms invest in AAA-rated infrastructure bonds. Most of the target is met by lending to government-owned infra financing companies like REC, PFC and IRFC making a mockery of the intention. The definition was expanded in 2012 to include housing finance companies, one of the safest segments for infrastructure exposure.

“For private insurance companies, taking credit risk is hard,” said Prashant Tripathy, MD and CEO, Max Life. “If any project goes bust, the insurance company will go bust.”

The average under-construction project is rated BBB, which insurers can’t buy into. Once a project is complete and starts generating cash, the rating automatically gets upgraded, but begins to yield less and leads to a missed opportunity to own a higher yielding paper.

India needs $4.5 trillion to be spent on infrastructure developments over the next 25 years, estimates the latest Economic Survey.

In fact, rating companies proposed a different rating scale for infrastructure firms based on likely recovery of dues over the life cycle of a project by factoring in the possibility of refinance or restructuring. This would be on the scale of EL 1 to EL 7. But IRDAI is yet to take a call.

One way to begin could be with government beginning a ‘risk fund’ that could comfort the insurance regulator in relaxing the rules.

“The government should create a huge risk fund, which can be offloaded to pension and insurance funds when the date of commissioning is decided,” says Narayan. “Insurance companies do not take the initial risk as they are not designed to take risks of that magnitude unless it is properly shielded.”

 

[Suryavanshi]

A review and comparisin of Made in India CNC machine vs foreign machine(Taiwan and Japan)
Conducted by icrier

By J Sutton

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...FjALegQIBRAB&usg=AOvVaw13s9FLgHZJLcoOZjYEYdFb

Conclusions

1 The range of productivity across Indian producers is very wide, and the highest level
attained in India is not very far below those of some Taiwanese competitors. This
implies that benchmarking against best Indian practice may be a good strategy for
many firms in the industry.
2 The productivity gap between the leading Indian producer and world class levels is
not as wide as the gap in wage rates; labour costs per machine produced are below
Taiwanese levels.
3 Only 15% or so of total unit cost consists of in-house wage costs, so even a doubling
of productivity would support a price cut of about 7½%. Such a price advantage can
be wiped out be even very small quality failings.
4 An important contributory factor to shortcomings both in productivity and quality lies
in the low output volumes of Indian firms.
5 The more important priority in improving performance lies in quality, rather than
productivity. Many of the problems in machine quality are of a kind that require both
design improvements and a tight control of production processes. Here, low volumes
are a problem, as it is difficult to implement and sustain improvements in production
practice without a continuous flow of production.
6 Recent experience of Taiwanese (and other foreign) competition has shown that many Indian customers are highly price-sensitive. Cutting prices may solve the volume
problem for some individual firms, but the net effect of such developments will lie in
a rise in industry concentration (a fall in the number of Indian producers), whether by
way of merger, consolidation or exit.
7 While Indian machines enjoy an overall advantage on service-related factors, they
under-perform foreign machines in terms of the knowledgability of service personnel.
This suggests that efforts should be focussed, not on increasing the number of service
personnel, but on improvements in the training of service engineers.

 

[Suryavanshi]

A review and comparisin of Made in India CNC machine vs foreign machine(Taiwan and Japan)
Conducted by icrier

By J Sutton

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...FjALegQIBRAB&usg=AOvVaw13s9FLgHZJLcoOZjYEYdFb

Conclusions

1 The range of productivity across Indian producers is very wide, and the highest level
attained in India is not very far below those of some Taiwanese competitors. This
implies that benchmarking against best Indian practice may be a good strategy for
many firms in the industry.
2 The productivity gap between the leading Indian producer and world class levels is
not as wide as the gap in wage rates; labour costs per machine produced are below
Taiwanese levels.
3 Only 15% or so of total unit cost consists of in-house wage costs, so even a doubling
of productivity would support a price cut of about 7½%. Such a price advantage can
be wiped out be even very small quality failings.
4 An important contributory factor to shortcomings both in productivity and quality lies
in the low output volumes of Indian firms.
5 The more important priority in improving performance lies in quality, rather than
productivity. Many of the problems in machine quality are of a kind that require both
design improvements and a tight control of production processes. Here, low volumes
are a problem, as it is difficult to implement and sustain improvements in production
practice without a continuous flow of production.
6 Recent experience of Taiwanese (and other foreign) competition has shown that many Indian customers are highly price-sensitive. Cutting prices may solve the volume
problem for some individual firms, but the net effect of such developments will lie in
a rise in industry concentration (a fall in the number of Indian producers), whether by
way of merger, consolidation or exit.
7 While Indian machines enjoy an overall advantage on service-related factors, they
under-perform foreign machines in terms of the knowledgability of service personnel.
This suggests that efforts should be focussed, not on increasing the number of service
personnel, but on improvements in the training of service engineers.

This report is 12 years old I think we have only improved since then

 

[cobra commando]

India replaces Japan as second top steel producer: worldsteel

India has replaced Japan as world's second largest steel producing country, while China is the largest producer of crude steel accounting for more than 51 per cent of production, according to World Steel Association (worldsteel). The global steel body in its latest report noted that China's crude steel output jumped 6.6 per cent to 928.3 million tonnes (MT) in 2018 from 870.9 MT in 2017. China's share increased from 50.3 per cent in 2017 to 51.3 per cent in 2018. "India's crude steel production in 2018 was at 106.5 MT, up by 4.9 per cent from 101.5 MT in 2017, meaning India has replaced Japan as the world's second largest steel producing country. Japan produced 104.3 MT in 2018, down 0.3 per cent compared to 2017," worldsteel said. Global crude steel production reached 1,808.6 MT for the year 2018 from 1,729.8 MT in 2017, a rise of 4.6 per cent, it said. Others in the top 10 steel producing countries include the United States, at the 4th position as the country produced 86.7 MT of crude steel in 2018, South Korea (72.5 MT, 5th place), Russia (71.7 MT, 6th), Germany (42.4 MT, 7th), Turkey (37.3 MT, 8th), Brazil (34.7 MT, 9th) and Iran (25 MT, 10th). Among other countries, Italy produced 24.5 MT of crude steel in 2018, France (15.4 MT) and Spain (14.3 MT), Ukraine (21.1 MT).

India replaces Japan as second top steel producer: worldsteel