The Indian steel industry,  with a 115 year old history,  is one of the earliest organized industries of the country.India's ranks among the world's top 10 steel producers with a grand total production of over 18.5 million tonnes per annum (TPA) of steel.India has seven large integrated iron and steel plants,of  which six are owned by the public sector Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) and one by the private sector, Tata Iron and Steel Company Limited (more popularly known as Tata Steel or TISCO).

All the seven integrated plants use the Blast-Furnace and L.D./Basic-Oxygen Furnace (BF-LD/BOF) process and all combined produce about 11.5 million TPA of steel.India also has some160 medium/mini-steel plants in the private sector, which produce a total of around 9 million TPA of steel by the Direct-Reduced Iron and Electric-Arc Furnace (DRI-EAF) process.

In addition, there are over 211 electric arc furnaces (EAFs) (also known as the mini steel plants) with a total licensed capacity to produce 10 million MTPA of ingots/billets. Of these,  156 private mini-steel mills that use either direct-reduction or EAF are in operation. Additionally, there are over 14,000 steel re-rollers who mostly use billets and scrap for re-rolling.

A liberalized steel policy recently announced by the Government has opened the blast furnace (BF) route to the private sector to set up integrated steel plant of 1.0 million MTPA capacity.Until now, only the EAF route was available to the private sector to set up mini steel plants of 100,000 metric ton capacity.In  response to policy changes, many steel producers are modernizing and expanding facilities and diversifying their product range.Some hope to cater exclusively to foreign buyers.New steel plants of up to 1 million MTPA are being set up throughout India with the latest Japanese, Italian, German, and U.S. technology.

The Government projects private investment of over $3 billion in the next five years will boost steel manufacturing capacity by 15-20 million MTPA. In addition, the GOI Department of Steel has approved plans for setting up of two joint (government & private) sector integrated steel mills in Orissa and Karnataka, with a total investment estimated at $3 billion.Expansion programs for existing alloy steel plants, such as GOI-owned Durgapur Alloy Steel plant and Salem Stainless Steel plant, will also add substantially to the total investments in the steel industry in India.