IIT Delhi and Jindal Steel Join Hands to Reimagine Structural Steel for India’s Infrastructure Future

India is building at a pace the country has never seen before. From soaring metro pillars and expressways cutting across states to high-rise housing clusters and industrial corridors, the nation’s infrastructure story is accelerating rapidly. But as India builds faster, a bigger question is emerging — can it also build smarter, stronger, and more sustainably?

In a significant step toward answering that question, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Jindal Steel to establish a Nodal Centre of Excellence (CoE) dedicated to structural steel research, design innovation, and skill development.

The collaboration aims to transform how structural steel is designed, applied, and scaled across India’s construction ecosystem.

IIT-Jindal Steel Partners

A Push for High-Strength, High-Performance Steel

The newly announced Centre of Excellence will focus especially on high-strength and performance-based steel applications in infrastructure and construction. At its core, the initiative seeks to increase the adoption of structural steel in India’s construction sector — an area where experts believe significant untapped potential exists.

Wider use of structural steel, experts say, can enable more sustainable buildings, reduce life-cycle costs, and significantly accelerate infrastructure development timelines. In a country where project speed, durability, and environmental responsibility are becoming equally important, structural steel offers a compelling advantage.

The Centre will act as a bridge between research labs and real-world construction sites — connecting design, fabrication, engineering, and implementation. Its work will extend across housing, bridges, tall buildings, and industrial structures.

Updating Design for Indian Conditions

One of the key focus areas of the Nodal Centre of Excellence will be revisiting and updating design codes and standards to better suit Indian conditions. While India has strong steel production capabilities, evolving design frameworks to accommodate modern, high-strength applications remains an important area of development.

The Centre will focus on:

• Performance-based design

• Durability and low-damage structural systems

• Multi-hazard resilience

• Reducing carbon footprint in steel construction

This means looking beyond just strength — and moving toward structures that can withstand environmental stress, reduce maintenance costs, and align with sustainability goals.

Beyond Research: Building Skills at Scale

The initiative is not limited to academic research. A major component of the Centre’s mandate is nationwide skill development.

Workshops, specialised training programs, and digital learning platforms will be rolled out to build capacity among engineers, designers, and construction professionals. The Centre will also offer direct design support for infrastructure projects, strengthening the link between theory and implementation.

Chair Professorships will be created to attract global experts and deepen industry-aligned research. This is expected to ensure that innovation remains grounded in practical needs.

A National Hub-and-Spoke Model

Positioned as a national nodal body, the Centre will bring together multiple IITs, ministries, industry leaders, and professional organisations under a coordinated framework.

Operating under a hub-and-spoke model led by IIT Delhi, other premier institutes — IIT Bombay, IIT Hyderabad, IIT Madras, and IIT Roorkee — will contribute through research, curriculum development, outreach programs, and the preparation of technical handbooks.

This coordinated structure aims to ensure that research findings translate into actionable standards, training modules, and industry practices across the country.

Professor Rangan Banerjee, Director of IIT Delhi, emphasised that the partnership will bring strong academic continuity to structural steel research, particularly in high-strength applications. He highlighted that the collaboration will help review and improve design methods and performance frameworks tailored to India’s infrastructure requirements. He also noted that the Centre will promote meaningful dialogue between researchers, policymakers, and industry professionals.

Gautam Malhotra, CEO of Jindal Steel, described India as being at a critical stage in its infrastructure journey. While the country possesses significant steel production capacity, he pointed out that the ecosystem for high-strength and performance-oriented structural steel needs further strengthening. He called the partnership a strategic move toward modernising design standards, encouraging deeper research, and building scalable, sustainable infrastructure solutions.

Aligning with India’s 2047 Vision

The MoU aligns with India’s broader infrastructure modernisation agenda and the vision of Viksit Bharat 2047. By strengthening technical standards, advancing research, and fostering collaboration between academia and industry, the Nodal Centre of Excellence is expected to contribute meaningfully to building a resilient and sustainable steel construction ecosystem.

As India prepares for decades of continued growth, the collaboration between IIT Delhi and Jindal Steel signals something larger than just a research partnership — it reflects a shift toward smarter infrastructure thinking. And in a country building for the future, that shift could prove foundational.