India's steel consumption in the first four months of the current financial year grew by just 0.6 per cent to 25.72 million tonnes.

The country, where around 70 per cent of the steel demand comes from the construction sector, had consumed 25.57 million tonnes steel during the April-July period of last year.

True reflection of the market sentiments and poor off take from the construction and projects steel consumption remained sluggish without any signs of turnaround. The current trend in steel market price levels plummeting steeply over the last 3 months barely leaves any glimmer of hope. Steel price levels in India have declined by 1% and for long products by 2% since July. Ironically this has happened with shortage of long products and iron ore scarcity after the clamp down on illegal mining in Odisha reflecting the acute demand crisis.

Growth in production of crude steel during the period by 0.9 per cent to 27.39 million tonnes compared to 27.15 million tonnes a year ago was very slow.

Future doesn’t hold much promise too with the economic indicators showing discouraging growth in surging to 7.96% in July from 7.46% in June. IIP production slumped to 3.4% in June from 5% in May. With the unlikelihood of lending rate being eased soon the market will gasp for credit and liquidity to generate demand and execute new capital expenditure.