Steel PSUs capex slashed by 11% to Rs 11,317 cr for FY19

Investments budgeted for nine PSUs under the Ministry of Steel have been lowered by 10.45 per cent to Rs 11,316.84 crore for the 2018-19 fiscal.

These PSUs are: Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL), Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd (RINL), Hindustan Steelworks Constructions, NMDC, KIOCL, Manganese Ore India Ltd, MECON, MSTC and Ferro Scrap Nigam Ltd.

The government had budgeted Rs 12,637.71 crore for these public sector undertakings (PSUs) for the current fiscal.

Investments were further revised downwards to Rs 11,455.91 crore compared to budget estimates.

The country's top iron ore producer NMDC's capex has been slashed by a huge 27 per cent to Rs 3,778 crore for the next fiscal.

The government had made a budget provision of Rs 5,174 crore for it for the ongoing fiscal.

As per the budget document, RINL's capex has been lowered by 26 per cent at Rs 1,400 crore for the next fiscal as against Rs 1891.65 crore budgeted for the current fiscal.

The capex of domestic steel giant SAIL, however, has been revised upward to Rs 4,000 crore for 2018-19 as against Rs 3,500 budgeted for 2017-18.

The steel ministry expects SAIL to show profit next year on the back of continued improvement in global commodity market.

The country's largest steelmaker has been posting losses since 2015-16, mainly on account of slowdown in the sector.

In 2015-16, SAIL had posted a loss of Rs 4,021 crore, while in 2016-17 its loss was Rs 2,833 crore.

As per the budget document, KIOCL's capex has been lowered to Rs 1,782.44 crore for the next fiscal as against Rs 1,800 crore budgeted for the current fiscal.

Among others, Manganese Ore India Ltd's capex has been lowered to Rs 278.86 crore as against Rs 159.65 crore in the current fiscal.