Mahindra arm, MSTC sign agreement for auto shredding joint venture

Mahindra Intertrade Ltd, a Mahindra Group company, today signed a joint venture agreement with state-run MSTC Limited for setting up the first auto shredding plant in India. The agreement, signed after the steel ministry granted approval for the project, will recycle auto scrap to manufacture specialised steels and other non-ferrous metals.

The plant will have the capacity of 1,00,000 tonnes per annum. In addition, it will alleviate the adverse impact of pollution for a sustainable development.

As the plant will use end of life vehicle (ELV) aged more than 10 years and white goods, recycling will also help conserve natural resources such as iron ore, coal, limestone, etc, which are used in making steel.

The shredding plant will reduce the dependence on present annual import of shredded scrap of 5-6 million tonne in our country and consequently reduce the foreign exchange out go. It will also help in domestic sourcing of raw material for secondary steel sector.

MSTC said the first mechanised shredding plant in India will bring a whole new method of processing of scrap from end-of-life vehicles (ELV) aged above 10 years and other white goods like air-conditioners, refrigerators, which after usage for a long period become unserviceable for further operation.

The joint venture expects the new scrappage policy for end of life vehicles under active consideration of the government to ensure steady availability of raw materials for the plant.

It will reduce the dependence on present annual import of scrap of 5-6 million tonnes of shredded scrap in the country, consequently reduce the foreign exchange outgo. In addition, the auto grade steel of vehicles will be recycled into a similar grade of steel as against making lower grade steel by unorganized sector.

The main shredding plant will shred the ELV and white goods and separate the ferrous components via magnetic separation. The rest of the output from the main shredding plant is processed through the 'eddy current' separator for non- ferrous material to yield two mixtures of non- ferrous metals called Zorba (which is predominantly aluminum) and Zurik (which is predominantly stainless steel) in addition to the main output as shredded scrap.

A downstream non-ferrous separator could be used further to separate the Zorba and Zurik to its component metals so as to tap the market of non-ferrous metals like aluminum, copper and others.

The shredded scrap will help secondary steel sector for its raw material requirements resulting in reduced dependence on imports.

The total investment for setting up the shredding plant having a capacity of 1 lakh tones per annum and the collection centers is expected to be about Rs120 crore.