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Iron deficiency to haunt India
By ceoaisra, Section ASK QUESTIONS Posted on Thu Oct 20, 2005 at 03:07:51 AM EST
Iron deficiency to haunt India
TODAY India is raring for energy security, tomorrow our diplomats will have to trot the work in search of iron ore reserves to meet burgeoning demand for it. Reason, India is sitting on a thin reserve of iron ore which will not last for more than one generation if our iron and steel consumption rise to match that of Chinese levels. India's total iron ore reserves stands at a paltry nine tonne per Indian based on mid-year population for 2004. This is less than one-sixth of global average (58 tonnes) and one-fourth that of China's (35.5 t). In per capita terms, Australia sits at the top with 2,000 tonnes per head followed by Ukraine and Kazakhstan. Assuming, iron and steel consumption doesn't grow and ore production remains stagnant at 2004 level, India will run out of iron ore reserves in the next 89 years, while China will take 165 years and for the world it will take 300 years to run-out of ore. This despite the fact that China's steel production and consumption was almost 10 times that of India (330million tonnes as against India's 35 million tonnes in 2004). In depletion time, only South Africa is below India at 57.5 years. At the top of the chartsarc the thinly populated countries such as Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Russia in that order. In capita terms, India's steel production is one-fifth of the world average and one-seventh that of China's. While the above statistics may scare you, our politicians and policy makers are hardly bothered. A thin reserve has not stopped our policy makers from making India one of biggest exporters of iron-ore in the world. Last financial year, India produced 123 million toones, half of which was exported.
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