Jindal Stainless’ Vijay Sharma Calls Corrosion a National Emergency at Republic Summit 2026 

Vijay Sharma, Director of Corporate Affairs at Jindal Stainless, took centre stage at the Republic Summit 2026 — held under the theme ‘Great Power India: Nation First’ with Prime Minister Narendra Modi as Chief Guest — to deliver one of the summit’s most data-driven addresses, calling corrosion a silent national emergency that India can no longer afford to ignore. Speaking on “A Sustainability Imperative for Viksit Bharat: Corrosion Management,” Sharma opened by challenging the prevailing definition of sustainability, arguing that fixating on carbon emissions alone is a myopic view, and that true sustainability must rest on three pillars: people, planet, and prosperity, all of which are being quietly eroded by corrosion every single day. He placed a striking number before the audience: corrosion costs India approximately ₹12 lakh crore annually, equivalent to four per cent of GDP, a figure that surpasses the country’s entire national infrastructure budget, exceeds 18 times the annual Jal Jeevan Mission funding, and amounts to more than half of India’s GST collection from the previous year, and yet remains almost entirely absent from national policy conversations. Sharma pointed out that over 40 per cent of India’s potable drinking water is lost annually to leakage driven largely by corroded pipe networks, while the country’s 11,000-kilometre coastline exposes vast stretches of critical infrastructure to some of the harshest corrosive environments on earth, directly threatening India’s blue economy ambitions. Drawing on the 1967 Silver Bridge collapse in the United States, a corrosion-linked failure that claimed 46 lives, he underscored that this is not merely an engineering or maintenance issue but a matter of human safety, economic resilience, and environmental responsibility. The challenge, he argued, is not the absence of technology but a deeply ingrained mindset that celebrates construction while neglecting preservation, prioritising initial capex over life cycle value. To turn the tide, Sharma laid out five national priorities: creating widespread awareness, adopting life cycle costing in procurement, mandating asset health audits and annual disclosures, investing in education and research, and accelerating the adoption of proven corrosion-resistant solutions including better protective systems, modern monitoring technologies, and materials like stainless steel that eliminate corrosion risk by design rather than merely managing it. Closing with the words “We are a nation of mettle, we can do it, let’s do it together,” Sharma made a compelling case that corrosion management is not a technical footnote but a defining sustainability imperative for Viksit Bharat.