West Asia- Jumblatt s Murder

This has resulted in the closure of a few refractory units and the near- closure of some others. Moreover, the steel plants have been placing orders mainly with those units in which they have a financial interest. This evidently has resulted in the favouring of inefficient units whose prices and quality are not competitive. But the flagging demand for refractories is also explained by the fact that, in recent years, steel plants have put up captive refractory plants of their own. Also, since the private sector has not been able to meet the specific demand of the steel plants, imports of refractories worth several lakhs of rupees have taken place even as there is a sizeable capacity under- utilisation in the refractory industry. With a view to producing the required quality of refractories, the government has so far taken over four private sector units which were in the red. These are: Asian Refractories (renamed Bharat Refractories), Burn and Company (as captive unit of Indian Iron and Steel), Assam Sil- limanite (ASL), and India Firebricks and Insulation (IFIC). A fifth unit has been put up as the captive unit of the Bhilai steel plant, with an annual capacity of 110,000 tonnes.