The Minister of Steel, Shri Beni Prasad Verma has said that the details of Profit After Tax (PAT) of the Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) during 2008-09 to 2010-11 and third quarter of financial year 2011-12 are as under: -

                                            (Rs. in crore)

          In a written reply in the Lok Sabha today Shri Verma said, in financial year 2010-11, as compared to financial year 2009-10, the profitability declined mainly due to adverse impact of input prices, particularly imported coal, salary & wages, higher interest & depreciation and reduction in interest earnings and increase in royalty on minerals etc.

He said, in third quarter of 2011-12, the profitability declined mainly due to lower production, sales volume of saleable steel, adverse impact of input prices, and increase in royalty on iron ore, higher interest & depreciation and adverse foreign exchange variation. The adverse impact has been partially offset by higher net sales realization of saleable steel.

Shri Verma said, in order to improve its profits, the steps taken by SAIL include improvement in production by targeting higher proportion of crude steel through energy efficient continuous casting route, increasing share of value added products in product mix, improving coal dust injection rate in blast furnaces, improving health of major units/steel making equipment etc. Other measures to improve overall profitability include improving techno-economic parameters, particularly coke rate and specific energy consumption, increasing sales of by-products, scrap, sale of idle assets and non-moving/obsolete stores and spares, curtailing expenditure on traveling and other administrative expenses etc.

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NSK/DB