Perform or perish is the message Steel Minister Birendra Singh delivered at a meeting of chiefs of top steel PSUs. He pulled up SAIL and RINL for not only failing to meet international benchmarks but were also behind their private counterparts and complacent in ramping up capacities. He said the performance of the top management would be audited. "In production and productivity parameters, PSUs are far behind their counterparts in private sector. In terms of international benchmarks, the performance of Indian steel companies is very poor," Singh told PSU top brasses as per the ministry sources. Providing a specific example, the minister said domestic steel giant SAIL could barely achieve blast furnace productivity at 1.7 tons per cubic meter per day (tpcm/d) in contrast to over 2.5 tpcm/d by private counterparts and global standards of over 3 tpcm/d. Also indicting SAIL for slow progress in modernization as well as ramping up of capacity, the minister said deadlines were missed one after another which cannot be tolerated anymore, according to the ministry sources. It is a question of survival "and stressed steel PSUs need to be proactive, not reactive" as it is "a do or die situation" and they "work in perform or perish mode to retain competitive edge". Irked at delays in all major projects, the minister announced that the Secretary Steel will finalize a mechanism to strictly assess individual performances as per outputs by the top brass.