India’s steel tube and pipe industry is entering a phase of accelerated transformation, driven by infrastructure expansion, automotive growth, energy investments, and rising demand for certified, application-specific products. At the same time, volatile raw material costs, tightening quality regulations, and evolving customer expectations are reshaping the competitive landscape for manufacturers. Indipower Steel Works Pvt. Ltd. is strengthening its focus on precision manufacturing, process discipline, and value-added offerings to position itself within the organized and quality-driven segment of the market. In an exclusive interview with Tube & Pipe India, Mr. Nitanshu Gupta, Managing Director, Indipower Steel Works Pvt. Ltd., discusses the company’s evolving manufacturing strategy, the growing importance of certified quality systems, and how Indipower is moving toward process-ready and application-focused tubular solutions.
Tube & Pipe India: How are the evolving steel dynamics — quality, pricing, availability — shaping your manufacturing strategy?
Nitanshu Gupta: The Indian steel pipes and tubes market stood at 13.56 million tonnes in 2024 and is projected to reach nearly 27.76 million tonnes by 2033 at a CAGR of approximately 7.65% — one of the most compelling growth trajectories in the broader metals sector. The steel pipe and tube sector already contributes around 8% to India’s overall steel consumption, and that share is set to grow as infrastructure, construction, and energy applications deepen their reliance on tubular products. At Indipower Steel Works, we view this structural tailwind as both an opportunity and a mandate to sharpen our manufacturing strategy across all three dimensions of pricing, quality, and availability.
On pricing, the pressure has been significant and sustained. HR coil — our primary feedstock — rose approximately 10% year-on-year to INR 54,225–56,200 per tonne in February 2026, while coking coal, which drives upstream production economics, climbed over 31% year-on-year. These are not short-term blips; they reflect a combination of global supply tightening, the rupee’s depreciation of roughly 11% against the dollar over the past fiscal year, and the downstream impact of India’s three-year safeguard duty on imported flat steel, which — while protecting domestic mills — has also put a floor under domestic coil prices. Our response has been to tighten procurement discipline, qualify a small panel of primary coil producers, and invest in process yield improvements that reduce material wastage per tonne of finished tube — because every kilogram of scrap in the current input cost environment directly erodes margin.
On availability, the geopolitical disruption has fundamentally reshaped the supply landscape. After US tariffs triggered a surge of diverted Chinese, South Korean, and Japanese steel into India — imports hitting record highs in H1 FY2025-26 — the government imposed first a provisional 12% safeguard duty in April 2025 and then formalised a three-year structured duty from December 2025, stepping down from 12% to 11% over the period. This has stabilised domestic flat steel availability for tube makers, but it has also made long-term procurement planning more important than reactive spot buying. We now carry more deliberate safety stock of pre-qualified coil to buffer against policy-driven volatility.
On quality, the evolving market itself is creating a positive forcing function. As India’s tube industry matures, organised manufacturers now command 60% of market value versus unorganised players, and that share is growing. Buyers in automotive and precision engineering are consolidating their supplier bases around producers with verifiable quality systems — and our IATF 16949:2016 and ISO 9001:2015 certifications at the Dewas facility, inherited through our acquisition of Caparo’s plant, position us clearly in that organised, certified tier.
TPI: How critical is steel quality in determining product performance, and how do you ensure the best quality in your products?
NG: Steel quality is the foundational variable in tube performance, and the criticality increases sharply as you move up the value chain from commodity structural sections to precision automotive and engineering tubes. The India steel pipes and tubes industry is bifurcated in a revealing way: by volume, the market splits 70:30 between ERW and seamless/SAW segments, but by value, the split is closer to 50:50 — which tells you directly that the higher-specification, quality-sensitive CDW and seamless products carry a meaningful price premium over commodity tonnage. That premium exists precisely because quality failures in end-use applications are costly and reputationally damaging for the buyer.
In ERW tube manufacturing, the weld seam is only as metallurgically sound as the base material feeding into it. Coil chemistry — carbon content, manganese-to-sulphur ratio, surface condition — directly governs weld bead integrity. A coil with inconsistent chemistry can produce welds that clear visual inspection but fail under fatigue loading or secondary forming operations at the customer’s plant. This is why our incoming material process goes beyond accepting mill test certificates: every heat lot at Dewas undergoes chemical composition and mechanical property verification before entering the forming line. It is a cost, but one we regard as non-negotiable.
On the process side, our high-frequency induction welding parameters — power, frequency, squeeze roll pressure — are held within tight documented control windows, and deviations trigger investigation rather than simply correction. We complement this with inline eddy current non-destructive testing for weld defects and continuous dimensional gauging through the forming section, so we are catching and addressing problems within the process rather than at final inspection. For automotive customers, we additionally follow the full PPAP discipline, which requires demonstrating statistical process stability across a production run before receiving customer approval to supply. This is demanding, but it is precisely what separates a credible precision tube maker — which is what we are — from a commodity supplier. Our IATF 16949:2016 certification requires us to maintain failure mode analyses, measurement system analyses, and active reaction plans that cascade quality accountability from raw material intake all the way to dispatch.
TPI: Which end-use sectors are currently driving demand for your steel products, and how is this influencing your portfolio?
NG: Three sectors are driving our demand simultaneously, and each has a different growth profile and quality requirement that is actively shaping how we build our portfolio.
Automotive and transportation stands at the top in terms of value and strategic importance for us. Within India specifically, two-wheeler production grew 16% year-on-year and commercial vehicle production rose 10.2% as of February 2026. Automotive gave us the clearest rationale for the Dewas acquisition and for investing in IATF certification — the margin per tonne in automotive-grade precision tubes substantially outpaces commodity structural sections, and the switching cost for a validated supplier is high, which gives us pricing stability once qualified.
Construction and structural applications are our volume anchor. The consumption of hollow structural sections in India increased by 18% in FY2024 alone, driven by commercial real estate and urban infrastructure development. The structural steel pipes market reached 3.6 million metric tonnes in FY2024, a 22% increase from FY2023. Metro rail projects alone consumed over 0.8 million metric tonnes of steel pipes and tubes in FY2024. Our black and galvanised tube range and rectangular/square hollow sections serve this segment directly, and the government’s sustained capital expenditure — with INR 11.11 lakh crore earmarked in the Union Budget 2025-26 — ensures this demand is policy-backed and forward-visible.
Oil, gas, and city gas distribution represents a third and growing demand stream. Oil and gas is the largest revenue-generating application in the Indian steel pipes and tubes market, accounting for 48% of revenue in 2023, and the power plant segment is growing at the fastest rate through to 2030. India’s city gas distribution programme has authorised over 31,700 km of trunk transmission pipelines and has over 1.16 crore domestic PNG connections operational. These programmes require precision line pipe grades that benefit from our quality infrastructure. The portfolio implication across all three sectors is clear: we are investing in multi-size tooling flexibility so we can switch between segment demands without long changeover penalties, while maintaining a dedicated quality track for our higher-specification automotive customers.
TPI: Are customers increasingly looking for application-specific products rather than standard offerings? How are you catering to this demand?
NG: The shift is unambiguous and industry data supports it clearly. In India, organised manufacturers already held 60.2% of the steel pipes and tubes market by value in 2024, and this segment is growing at a faster pace than the unorganised tier — driven precisely by the fact that large end-users are increasingly requiring certified, application-specific products rather than commodity tubes from anonymous secondary suppliers. The BIS Quality Control Orders and mandatory IS-code compliance requirements are adding regulatory force to what was already a commercial trend: buyers in construction, automotive, and energy increasingly need documented material traceability and application-fit specifications, which eliminates the unorganised tier from consideration.
In automotive, the shift is most explicit. Tier-1 suppliers today present drawing packs specifying not just outer diameter and wall thickness but ovality tolerances, weld offset limits, hardness ranges, and surface finish requirements for subsequent hydroforming, bending, or coating operations at their own plants. A generic commercial tube cannot meet these specifications. We have responded by expanding our CRCA tube range alongside standard HR-based ERW products — because specific precision applications require the tighter dimensional control, lower residual stress, and finer surface finish that cold-rolled close-annealed material provides. Supplying both grades from a single IATF-certified source gives the customer consolidated accountability and eliminates an interface risk in their quality chain.
Automotive gave us the clearest rationale for the Dewas acquisition and for investing in IATF certification — the margin per tonne in automotive-grade precision tubes substantially outpaces commodity structural sections, and the switching cost for a validated supplier is high, which gives us pricing stability once qualified.
TPI: How do you view your business evolving toward end-to-end, turnkey solutions?
NG: The global ERW pipes and tubes market is growing at a 6.1% CAGR through 2035, and within that market, roughly 70.5% of volume is welded tube — ERW and CDW — with construction consuming 40% and automotive 27% of ERW output globally. The manufacturers winning disproportionate share within this growing market are those who move beyond selling a commodity shape and into delivering a processed, ready-to-use product that reduces the customer’s own manufacturing steps. That is the direction we are deliberately moving in at Indipower.
Our near-term model of end-to-end value is built around what we call process-ready tubes — products supplied not just to dimensional specification but with secondary operations that remove work from the customer’s floor. This means precision cutting to length with burr-free ends, pre-bent or pre-notched sections for assembly applications, and packaging configured for direct automated line feeding at the OEM’s plant. Each of these steps captures value that was previously being generated by the customer or a third-party processor, and each can be embedded into our existing IATF quality framework without disrupting core manufacturing focus.
Over the medium term, we see scope for light fabricated assemblies — welded sub-frames, structural kits, or furniture frame modules where we take defined responsibility for a set of joining operations beyond tube forming. This keeps us firmly within our metallurgical and forming expertise while moving closer to the customer’s bill of materials. India’s prefab construction market is growing at 10.5% annually, according to KPMG India’s Prefabrication and Modular Building Report 2024, and this creates natural demand for pre-processed, ready-to-assemble tubular components that we are well positioned to supply. We are using industry platforms like the Tube and Pipe Fair — where we make our formal debut in November 2025 — to identify technology and service partners who can accelerate specific capability additions, rather than requiring us to build every capability from scratch organically.
TPI: Does offering a wider range of turnkey solutions provide a competitive edge, or does it add operational complexity?
NG: Both are true simultaneously, and managing that tension intelligently is the real strategic challenge. The competitive advantage of turnkey solutions is economically quantifiable: a buyer who sources dimensionally precise, surface-conditioned, cut-to-length tube from a single certified supplier eliminates coordination risk across multiple vendors, reduces quality interface complexity, and gains a single point of accountability — all of which have measurable cost value in a modern supply chain. In automotive supply chains especially, where a single quality escape can trigger a line-stoppage claim that dwarfs the value of the original supply contract, the premium attached to a turnkey certified supplier is real and defensible.
At the same time, the operational complexity cost is equally real. ERW and CDW steel is already a process-intensive product — weld chemistry, dimensional control, inline NDT, PPAP compliance — and adding secondary operations without adequately embedding them in the quality management system creates exactly the kind of process fragmentation that can compromise the core product. We have seen this pattern damage suppliers who expanded too quickly in the name of value addition.
Our answer is deliberate sequencing rather than simultaneous expansion. We add one new capability at a time, stabilise it within our existing control plan and FMEA framework, validate it with a customer qualification, and only then move to the next step. The discipline test is whether the new capability can be fully documented, controlled, and measured within our IATF quality system — if it cannot meet that bar, we do not add it regardless of commercial attractiveness. The current elevated input cost environment — with HR coil at 10% above year-ago levels and coking coal up over 30% — provides a useful capital allocation filter: we prioritise capability additions with the fastest and most certain return, which currently favours process steps requiring low capital but delivering high customer value, such as precision end-finishing and certified dimensional testing services.
TPI: How do you ensure consistency and quality across your diversified product portfolio?
NG: Consistency across a diversified product mix is a systems challenge as much as a manufacturing challenge, and it requires architecture rather than intention. Three interlocking elements form the foundation of our approach at Indipower.
The first is a unified quality management system that applies uniformly across every product line. Automotive precision tubes, black sections, galvanised pipes, CRCA grades, and steel door frames all operate under the same ISO 9001:2015 and IATF 16949:2016 umbrella at our Dewas facility. This means a single set of control plans, out-of-specification reaction protocols, and corrective action processes — there is no conceptual distinction between a “high-quality automotive line” and a “commercial line.” The IATF framework in particular is demanding precisely because it does not permit carve-outs: measurement system analyses, capability studies, and failure mode analyses must be maintained for every product family.
The second element is process capability tracking as a predictive rather than retrospective tool. For each product family we maintain running capability indices on critical characteristics — outer diameter, wall thickness, weld offset, straightness, and hardness where specified. The discipline here is that a trending downward capability index, even while parts are still nominally conforming, triggers investigation and root cause analysis before a quality escape reaches the customer. End-of-line inspection alone catches problems too late and too expensively. The India steel market’s move toward BIS Quality Control Orders and mandatory IS-code certification is actually reinforcing this internal discipline — regulators and large buyers are increasingly asking for documented process capability data, not just inspection records.
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TPI: Will growth be driven more by scale in core products or by diversification into specialized applications?
NG: The answer, supported by where the India tube and pipe market is heading, is deliberately both — on different time horizons and with different capital profiles.
In the near term, volume growth in core ERW and CDW products is the primary lever, and the market fundamentals support it strongly. India’s steel pipes market at 13.56 million tonnes in 2024 is projected to reach 27.76 million tonnes by 2033, meaning the total addressable market is roughly doubling over the decade. The structural hollow sections market in India grew 18% in FY2024 and the structural steel pipes market grew 22% in the same year — these are exceptional growth rates for a materials sector. India becoming a net steel exporter in FY2026, with exports rising 43% to 8.77 million tonnes, signals that domestic manufacturing competitiveness is improving and that export markets — particularly the Gulf, Africa, and Southeast Asia where Indian ERW producers are gaining traction — represent a real incremental volume opportunity for us beyond the domestic market.
In the medium term, specialised applications are where the margin expansion story lives. ERW usage in automotive reached 18.3 million tonnes globally in 2024, and Asia-Pacific saw a 13% uplift in demand for automotive tubular components. The EV transition is creating new geometric requirements and grade specifications that commodity suppliers cannot easily address. The city gas distribution build-out requires higher-specification line pipe with traceable quality documentation. The prefab construction boom, growing at 10.5% annually, rewards suppliers who can deliver pre-processed, dimensionally consistent structural tube kits. Each of these niches rewards certified quality over price competition, and each represents a market where our IATF 16949:2016 pedigree give us a structural entry advantage.
The raw material environment makes specialisation not just strategically attractive but financially imperative. With HR coil and coking coal both at multi-year cost highs, the economics of commodity tube are under serious pressure. Moving up the value chain — through tighter specifications, secondary processing, and certified supply — is how we protect and grow our margins even as input costs remain elevated. Our plan is to use scale in core products to generate the cash flow that funds the capability investments required for specialised market entry, ensuring that every step of that journey is anchored in the quality foundation our Dewas platform has already established.
Our near-term model of end-to-end value is built around what we call process-ready tubes — products supplied not just to dimensional specification but with secondary operations that remove work from the customer’s floor.
