Technical Division

BACKGROUND & COMPOSITION

The Technical Wing which has now been renamed as Technical Division was set up in late 60’s as per the recommendation of a committee under the Chairmanship of Shri Khadilkar, Member of Parliament. Since its inception, the Technical Wing was mainly concerned with rendering technical advice and comments on issues sought by various Officers/ Divisions/ Sections of the Ministry and the main work related to techno-economic evaluation of industrial licensing applications, foreign collaboration applications and essentiality certificate for import of capital goods, raw materials, foreign technicians etc.

In the mid/late 80’s the then Joint Secretary (Shri Pradip Baijal) and Secretary (Shri Venkatnarayanan) assigned the work related to R&D under the then Science Advisory Committee (SAC) Mechanism for grant/ review of R&D projects with Government Budgetary Support and Quality Control & Standardization under the Steel Sectoral Coordination Committee (SSCC), in view of its technical nature.

In the early 90’s, Government of India announced the Environment Protection Act thereby requiring the iron & steel plants to comply with the prescribed norms. This work under the board category of Energy & Environment Management was also assigned to Technical Wing by the then Joint Secretary (Shri Khattar) and Secretary (Shri Venkatnarayanan). After de-licensing and deregulation in 1991-92, the work on Industrial Licensing got substantially reduced but on the other hand, substantial new work relating to 1) Fixation of Input-Output Norms for allowing duty free imports under advance licensing scheme of DGFT, 2) Imports of Capital Goods under the EPCG Scheme, 3) Prime Minister’s Trophy, 4) National Metallurgist Day Awards etc. were entrusted to Technical Wing.

The Technical Division is headed by an Industrial Adviser under the overall administrative control of one of the Joint Secretary in the Ministry. Presently, under them there is one Assistant Industrial Adviser. Posts of Industrial Adviser, Additional Industrial Advisor, Joint Industrial Adviser and one Deputy Industrial Adviser are lying vacant.

FUNCTIONS :

Technical Division is entrusted full-fledged secretariat/ administrative work in respect of various subjects of technical nature viz. Research & Development, Energy & Environment Management, Standardization & Quality Control of steel products, Promotion of Safety in Steel Sector etc. The work being dealt with by Technical Division may be grouped under two broad categories namely, Advisory Functions and Direct (Secretariat) Functions as under:

1. DIRECT/ ADMINISTRATIVE FUNCTIONS: Direct disposal of issues with the approval of Competent authorities (JS/Secretary/ SM):

• Research & Development in Iron & Steel Sector
• Technical Regulations on Steel & Steel Products to promote quality
• Promotion of Safety in Steel Sector
• National Metallurgists’ Awards
• Safety, Disaster management, technology upgradation of Steel Industry
• Issues related to Steel Consumption, Steel Consumer Council/Advisory Council & INSDAG

1. ADVISORY FUNCTIONS: Rendering technical advice/comments to all officers / divisions/ sections of MoS and other Ministries:

• Matters relating to Planning & Development of iron & steel, ferro alloys, refractory industry (National Steel Policy, Working Group on Iron & Steel, Working Group on Coal etc)
• Matters relating to WTO / TBT
• Essentiality Certificate for grant of Project Imports for initial setting up of iron & steel projects or for substantial expansion
• Technical Inputs on the representations of the Industry & Associations
• Certifying requirements for fuel (coal, furnace oil, NG, LPG etc.) and raw material/ inputs for iron & steel industry
• Assessing Techno-economic performance parameters of iron & steel plants
• Comments/ inputs on the Cabinet Notes, Policy documents of other Ministries