India’s small steelmakers have no easy fix to go green

The steel industry announces itself early on the road from Raipur airport into the city. Hoardings for Goel TMT, GK TMT, Concrete TMT and many others appear one after another. These steel brands are deeply interwoven with Chhattisgarh’s economy but are barely known outside the state.

Farther out, towards the industrial clusters of Urla and Siltara, the advertisements give way to the plants themselves: ironmaking units, rolling mills, steel-melting shops, trucks carrying coal and iron ore, and stacks of steel bars and tubes waiting to be transported across the country. The air changes, too, thick with smoke and dust. The environmental cost of steelmaking is difficult to miss, but so is its economic importance.

These industrial clusters support tens of thousands of workers and a much larger network of transporters, traders, contractors and small suppliers. They also reflect a wider reality across India.

The micro, small and medium-size enterprises (MSMEs) that largely make up the “secondary” steel sector are responsible for around 40% of crude steel production in India, the world’s second-largest steelmaking nation. They supply steel for construction, industry and infrastructure, all while operating on tight margins and relying heavily on coal to make direct reduced iron (DRI), also known as sponge iron. This, along with scrap metal, is a key input for secondary steelmakers, who mostly use electric or induction furnaces, rather than firing virgin iron ore in blast furnaces as in the “primary” route.

Producers using this coal-based DRI method alone cover almost 30% of India’s crude steel output, according to the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW). But this is also the most emissions-intensive steelmaking route, producing 2.7–3.1 tonnes of CO2 for every tonne of crude steel, CEEW explains. The global average is about 1.92 tonnes.

A coal-based sponge iron plant in West Bengal. This mode of processing iron dominates India’s secondary steel sector, and leads to the most emission-intensive steelmaking route (Image: ZUMA Press / Alamy)

Pressure to decarbonise, coming from both the Indian government and overseas markets, will require smaller producers to invest in cleaner technologies, improve energy efficiency and, in some cases, rethink the fuels and raw materials they use.

“The point is that the government is pushing us to be energy efficient and that is the need of the hour. But the way forward is a bit confusing,” said Saurabh Agrawal, president of Raipur-based Real Ispat & Power Ltd, which reportedly produces around 800,000 tonnes of both sponge iron and various steel products a year. “How can the secondary steel industry actually reduce emissions is a big question mark.”

Small steelmakers face tight conditions

Raipur offers a window into the challenge facing this part of India’s steel industry. The city and neighbouring districts of Bilaspur, Bastar, Raigarh and Durg are rich in coal, iron ore, limestone and other minerals. An estimated 316 micro, small and medium-sized secondary steel enterprises operate in the Raipur cluster, according to Sameeksha, a platform that promotes energy efficiency among India’s small businesses.

While large integrated iron and steel producers such as Tata Steel and JSW Steel generally have greater financial and technical capacity to pursue decarbonisation, secondary steelmakers operate in a highly competitive market, with limited access to capital and little room to absorb higher costs.

“Most secondary steel companies don’t have the financial bandwidth. They would need supportive fiscal measures right now such as concessional finance, viability gap funding, or dedicated credit guarantee support, that make decarbonisation financially viable for players who don’t have the balance sheet to absorb it alone,” Saurabh Trivedi, lead specialist for sustainable finance and carbon markets at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), told Dialogue Earth by email.

The Indian government has shifted its emissions focus from energy-efficiency targets towards carbon-intensity targets. It has also introduced its carbon credit trading scheme (CCTS) under the Indian carbon market, with draft emissions-intensity targets proposed in June to cover all types of steel plants, though implementation has been delayed until the 2026-27 financial year.

“Because of the very tight market conditions, people [in steel MSMEs] are literally not interested in doing anything in decarbonisation because they are struggling for survival, they are scared to invest,” said Vivek Agrawal, an independent consultant who works with medium and small firms in Chhattisgarh to improve operations. He was previously chief operating officer at Godawari Power & Ispat Ltd, a publicly listed steelmaker in Raipur.

The looming demands of the CCTS come at a time when the local industry is already struggling with weaker-than-expected demand, overcapacity in the region, and higher electricity tariffs in Chhattisgarh. Margins have been squeezed, leaving smaller and non-integrated producers in particular under financial pressure. Infrastructure spending also slowed around India’s 2024 general election due to restrictions under its electoral code of conduct. A power tariff increase announced by the state government in June added further pressure. Secondary steel producers are particularly exposed because they account for over 60% of the country’s long steel products.

Real Ispat’s Agrawal said that the list of actions and guidelines that he had seen proposed by the government for secondary steelmakers to reduce their emissions “is not for a running [operational] plant”, but the “complete replacement” of their equipment. “I told them: if you expect us to spend so much money to reduce our CCTS score, I won’t find a single client to buy our steel.”

Some energy progress, but limits to uptake

In its 2024 Green Steel Roadmap, the Indian government identified hydrogen-based steelmaking, carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS), and other emerging technologies as important routes towards decarbonisation. But a switch to green hydrogen-based DRI, a potentially key near-zero emissions pathway, remains technologically challenging and economically unviable for most smaller producers. CCUS is also prohibitively expensive today and unlikely to be viable in the short-to-medium term, according to the June 2026 CEEW report.

“I would view India’s secondary steel sector as facing one of the most complex decarbonisation challenges anywhere in the global steel industry,” said Ashima Tyagi, economics associate director for pricing and purchasing at S&P Global Market Intelligence.

So how prepared are these companies for a low-carbon transition? Raipur steel industry experts who spoke to Dialogue Earth suggested its coal-fired rotary kilns, covering 80% of Indian secondary steel’s DRI production, cannot become truly low-carbon without a fundamental technological shift. However, there is considerable scope to reduce emissions intensity by using less coal per tonne of DRI and less fossil-fuel-based electricity per tonne of steel, the CEEW report noted. In a fragmented and cost-conscious market, however, such changes are most likely to be adopted when the economic benefits justify the capital expenditure.

History offers some examples of what has worked.

Almost all sponge iron producers in Raipur, including larger companies such as Real Ispat and Godawari, operate captive power plants equipped with waste heat recovery boilers. The technology was introduced more than two decades ago and has since been widely adopted here despite the initial capital cost, largely because it delivers immediate energy savings. By capturing and reusing waste heat, plants can cut both energy costs and emissions.

Sponge iron is lifted with a magnet at a facility in India (Image: Dinodia Photos / Alamy)

Other technologies adopted by some medium-sized integrated producers in Raipur include continuous casting and hot charging. These processes allow molten steel from an induction furnace to be cast directly into semi-finished shapes to be processed into products such as rods, bars and wires. This removes the need for coal-intensive reheating furnaces, used to heat cooled steel before further processing, and can significantly reduce energy consumption and emissions.

The technology, however, is more difficult for smaller producers to adopt. Micro-scale companies further down the supply chain often lack the land and capital needed to integrate more stages of production.

“I don’t do hot charging because I don’t have land. You require 10 to 15 acres extra land for melting equipment, scrap and raw material,” said Sanjay Tripathi, owner of Shivam Structural & Steel in Urla and president of the Chhattisgarh Steel Re-rollers Association. “Hot charging reduces coal costs by 1,000 rupees [USD 10] per tonne of steel, but don’t forget the capital costs. Only companies with scale benefit from it; for us the margin benefit isn’t much.”

Solar a growing option – also with limits

The growing use of solar power offers another example of how cleaner technologies can gain traction when the economics are favourable. Captive solar installations have expanded across Chhattisgarh’s steelmaking belt, particularly among medium-sized and smaller companies, as installation costs have fallen and grid electricity prices have risen.

Although solar projects require substantial upfront investment, the savings can be significant. Company representatives consulted in Raipur told Dialogue Earth that captive solar power costs around INR 3-3.5 (USD 0.03) per kilowatt-hour unit, compared with INR 6.5-7 (USD 0.06-0.07) for grid electricity. Mahamaya Steel, a publicly listed secondary steel company with 400,000 tonnes of capacity, said it plans to establish a 150-megawatt (MW) captive solar plant near Bilaspur to meet most of its electricity requirements. Real Ispat also expects to have 150 MW of solar capacity operational this year.

If shared by neighbouring steelmakers, captive renewable energy could lower electricity costs for India’s small and medium-sized steel units by as much as 34% compared to sourcing from the grid, according to a report released at the Confederation of Indian Industry’s Green Steel and Mining Summit, held in Raipur in August.

Again, however, high land costs, upfront expenditure and transmission charges prevent many micro-scale producers from benefitting. A ground-mounted solar power plant typically requires capital expenditure of between INR 3.5-4 crore per MW (USD 370,000-423,000). One Raipur steelmaker consulted by Dialogue Earth estimated that only around 10% of rolling mills currently have access to solar power. (Producers that only run rolling mills are usually micro-scale.)

Companies have also made smaller investments in equipment where the technology is proven, and the financial returns are clear. Real Ispat told Dialogue Earth it had recently replaced hundreds of gearboxes across its plant with more energy-efficient models, while Mahamaya Steel said it has likewise upgraded its furnaces.

“We have replaced our five old induction furnaces over the last three to four years and installed one new furnace,” said Rajesh Agrawal, managing director of Mahamaya Steel. “By replacing these old furnaces, we were able to save 35 units per tonne in power costs. That comes to INR 3.5 crore in savings per year. We have also considered using batteries to store solar energy but the costs are higher than what we can afford. We are waiting for prices to come down.”

Real Ispat also uses a higher proportion of imported steel scrap alongside sponge iron to produce higher-quality steel for lucrative government and industrial projects. Given India’s tight domestic scrap supply, imports are often needed for scrap with fewer impurities, meaning higher yields and lower energy use to process it. Scrap use also reduces carbon emissions, though this is largely a secondary benefit for many companies, with Agrawal primarily emphasising the business case for its usage.

Significant support for MSMEs is needed

Other approaches have proven less successful.

This April, the Chhattisgarh government approved the Urban Gas Distribution Policy 2026 to accelerate the rollout of piped natural gas and last-mile infrastructure. Only a few months later, Godawari temporarily suspended operations at its two-million-tonne-a-year iron ore pellet plant in the Siltara industrial area after GAIL, the state-owned gas utility, curtailed gas supplies due to disruptions linked to the conflict in West Asia.

Steelmakers in Raipur also pointed to natural gas being at least twice as expensive as coal. Greater dependence on imported gas has raised concerns around energy security and foreign-exchange costs.

“No one is using piped natural gas in Raipur. It is neither available because of the war nor economically viable. It is very volatile also due to currency fluctuations. The rupee has also weakened against the dollar,” said Tripathi, the re-rolllers association president. “Coal is available everywhere [in coal-rich Chhattisgarh]. Logistically it is also not expensive, as the coal mines aren’t too far.”

Several government schemes to support investment in green technologies and energy-efficient equipment have struggled to gain traction. The MSE Green Investment and Financing for Transformation (MSE-GIFT) scheme disbursed only 3.7% of its targeted interest-subsidy allocation. Meanwhile, some MSME leaders in Raipur and industry think-tanks told Dialogue Earth that a dedicated scheme supporting industrial technology upgrades for MSMEs, launched by the Bureau of Energy Efficiency in 2025, has seen low interest due to complex paperwork, low awareness and insufficiently attractive interest subsidies.

“Industrial decarbonisation is not going to happen through market forces alone. It would require public capital and policies to move first and the markets will follow accordingly,” IEEFA’s Trivedi told Dialogue Earth.

Hemant Mallya, a fellow in industrial sustainability at CEEW, told Dialogue Earth that the central government should operationalise public procurement of green steel to create demand, roll out the proposed National Mission on Sustainable Steel with capital support aimed at secondary producers. He also said it should leverage the India-EU, India-ASEAN and India-UK free trade agreements to build trade corridors for “green iron”, a transportable form of the metal processed using renewables, seen as a potentially key input for near zero-emissions steel.

The secondary steel sector’s decarbonisation pathway “is likely to be gradual and focused initially on operational improvements rather than disruptive technological change”, said S&P’s Tyagi. “Over the medium to long term, achieving deeper emissions reductions will require significantly higher capital investment.”