In 2017, India's Cabinet approved a policy with a number attached to it that sounded almost implausible at the time: 300 million tonnes of steelmaking capacity by 2030.1 Eight years on, that number has stopped being aspirational and started being a genuine construction schedule, one the industry is roughly on pace to hit, but only if capacity additions keep coming at the current rate.
What the National Steel Policy Actually Targets
The National Steel Policy 2017 sets three linked targets for 2030–31: crude steel capacity of 300 million tonnes, crude steel production of 255 million tonnes, and per-capita finished steel consumption of 158 kg, up from around 61 kg at the time the policy was written.2 That consumption figure matters as much as the production one: capacity built without domestic demand to absorb it is just idle steel, so the policy frames capacity growth and consumption growth as targets that have to move together.
The policy also sets a raw-material objective alongside the tonnage targets: reducing import dependence on coking coal from around 85% to roughly 65% by 2030–31, and meeting the entire domestic demand for high-grade automotive steel, electrical steel, and special alloy steel needed for strategic applications, categories India currently still imports.2
Where Capacity Stands Today
As of November 2025, India's installed steelmaking capacity stood at an estimated 235 million tonnes.3 Staying on pace for the 2030 target means adding roughly 65 million tonnes of fresh capacity over the following five years, a rate of a little over 13 million tonnes a year, sustained, which is a materially faster build-out than the industry has historically managed outside of the last decade's expansion cycle.
That capacity is not being added by a handful of large integrated players alone. A meaningful share of India's steel capacity growth over the past two decades has come from mid-sized, often regionally concentrated producers, the same pattern seen in DRI production, expanding rolling and finishing capacity in states with strong raw material access, West Bengal and Jharkhand among them.
Why the Target Isn't Just About Tonnage
Government messaging around the policy has been explicit that the 2030 target is meant to be reached without simply repeating the emissions profile of the capacity India already has. Public statements from the Ministry of Steel have tied capacity expansion directly to raw material security and to the country's separate green steel push, the same period in which the Ministry introduced India's green steel taxonomy, discussed elsewhere in this series, precisely so the new capacity being added toward 300 MT doesn't lock in another generation of high-emission plants.4
For a producer already operating inside this window, the policy reads less like an external target and more like a description of the industry's actual near-term math: more domestic capacity, less import dependence on key inputs, and new capacity expected to meet a cleaner emissions bar than the plants it's built alongside.
Shakambhari's own expansion, from a single Madandih unit in 2001 to eight integrated units today, has tracked this same growth curve the sector as a whole is now being asked to sustain nationally.