OREANDA-NEWS. Notwithstanding the slowdown in the steel market, Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) registered a 16% growth in sales during the month of August '13 by selling 10.86 lakh tonnes of steel products as compared to 9.38 lakh tonnes in corresponding period last year (CPLY). The rise in sales was mainly on account of increase in flat product sales, which went up by 26%. While long products saw a growth of 3%, retail sales at 53,800 tonnes in the month were up by 62% on a month-to-month basis. Concerted efforts to harness the rising dollar materialized in a significant growth in exports to a level of 31,000 tonnes, a CPLY growth of 36%.

For the five month duration of April-August '13, the cumulative steel sales stood at 47.8 lakh tonnes, a growth of 7% over CPLY.

The growth in sales was backed by the diligent efforts of SAIL employees. Recently, employees of SAIL proved their mettle in the Vishwakarma Rashtriya Puraskar (VRP) and Prime Minister's Shram awards. In the VRP awards announced for performance year 2011, SAIL gleaned 18 out of 28 awards, constituting 64% of the total awards won, also the highest number won by any PSU. Out of 116 VRP awardees, a whopping 76% were from SAIL alone. In the Prime Minister's Shram Awards for 2012 announced early this month, SAIL won 6 out of the 16 awards conferred on PSUs; SAIL employees constituted half of the total Shram awardees.