"I would advise our steel industry to take a long term view and not fall prey to the temptation of seeking windfall gains from market manipulation in a period of excess demand," he said at Tata Steel's centenary celebrations.
Rising steel prices is a major concern for the government, as inflation has been hovering around a 3-year high in the last few weeks, prompting the administration to threaten a ban on futures trading in steel and bringing it back into Essential Commodities Act.
"The Indian economy would continue to grow and the demand for steel will continue to grow. Industry and trade must eschew short-term gains that hurt consumers and disrupt the stability of the process of economic growth," he said.
Appreciating the achievements of Tata Steel, the world's cheapest steel maker, in the last 100 years, he said steel was a symbol of progress in the past century.
Earlier, the Prime Minister laid the foundation for the modernisation and expansion of the Bokaro Steel plant at Bokaro. State-run SAIL has embarked on a Rs 11,000 crore (Rs 110 billion) expansion of the Bokaro steel plant.
Steel Minister Ram Vilas Paswan, who was also present on the occasion, said that the Indian steel industry was growing at the rate of 10 per cent while consumption grew by 13 per cent. This called for raising of production for which Steel Authority of India would invest Rs 54,000 crore (Rs 540 billion) across all steel plants in the country to raise the total capacity.
He said SAIL's capacity would be ramped up to 26 MT by 2010 from the present level of 14 MT.
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