Having to cope up with depleting sales and rising input costs,triggered by the ongoing global economic downturn,SAIL the countrys biggest steel producer has sustained a 37 per cent dip in net profit at Rs 1486.68 crore during the last quarter of fiscal 2008-09. Describing the year as a challenging one,the state-run giant said it planned to raise about Rs 6,000 crore through long-term bonds to fund its capital expansion plans. Lower realisations amid the global economic crisis and the subsequent fall in steel demand and prices hit our profit in Q4 of 2008-09. We still anticipate a challenging year ahead, Steel Authority of India Ltd chairman Sushil Kumar Roongta said while announcing the companys results here. He reasoned that though the PSU had incurred losses in the fourth quarter,its profits were higher by 76 per cent in the third quarter of the same fiscal. Hoping that demand for the metal would rise in the near future,he said,Revival in steel demand began in the fourth quarter and trends in the current quarter are also encouraging. With a boost to infrastructure building in the offing,we expect steel demand in the country to grow further in the current financial year. For the fiscal ended March 2009,the steel maker posted a net profit of Rs 6,174.81 crore,down 18 per cent from Rs 7,536.78 crore in 2007-08. Undeterred by the dipping profit margins,Roongta said SAIL would infuse fresh capital of about Rs 10,000 crore in the current year to execute the ongoing expansion and modernisation exercise,where SAIL aims to ramp up its production capacity to 26 million tones within the next two years. When asked whether SAIL would be open to offloading some of its stake,Roongta said no thought had been given in this connection. Delving on the vexed issue of ensuring Chiria iron ore mines to SAIL,Roongta said the Jharkhand government has finally accepted that the PSU was the rightful owner of the said mines and has officially notified the same. He,however,maintained that the dispute regarding the lease of four blocks of the Chiria mines still exists. In a bid to control its manpower costs SAIL plans to trim its workforce by 7,000 employees this fiscal with a view to reducing its employee cost by Rs 3,50,000 crore per annum.
