KAP Singh, director (commercial), SAIL, told The Financial Express on Tuesday that SAIL is appointing around 50-60 distributors in various parts of the country by the end of this year to reach its products to small consumers following grievances that their interests are not being looked after.

Singh said SAIL has targeted to appoint 200 distributors to market SAIL products within the next year. He said SAIL's sales will go up 5-6 per cent with the introduction of the secondary distribution channels for small consumers by the end of this financial year.

He said the interest of the bulk consumers will be looked into by SAIL's 45 stockyards in various parts of the country.

Singh also said SAIL has fixed a target of increasing sales by 20 per cent over that of last year.

Earlier, addressing the VSubramony memorial lecture at the conference on "Rolling and finishing technology" organised by the Institute of Engineers (India) in association with Mecon and RDCIS, Singh said selection of proper technology is vital to the survival and prosperity of the cold rolling industry. The cold rolling mills attempting to manufacture quality products should adopt 100 per cent hydrogen annealing process, advantages of which are bright surface finish, even temperature distribution resulting in uniform properties, higher yield and low energy consumption.

Singh said Tisco has already initiated action for implementation of a modern CRM complex of about 1.2 mt per year consisting of about 800,000 tonne per year of CR sheets/coils, about 300,000 tonne per year of galvanised sheets for the auto sector and about 100,000 tonne per year of galvanised sheets for general purposes.

Tisco's CRM complex is expected to go into commercial production by mid-2000. Its finished products are expected to meet the stringentspecifications of the end-using downstream industries, Singh said.

The SAIL director said "To cater to the demand for sophisticated CR products, it is imperative that the CRM complexes of Rourkela and Bokaro are also modernised and revamped with state-of-the-art technology, for which the feasibility is already being considered".