Steel is crucial to the development of any modern economy and is considered to be one of the backbones of human civilization. The level of per capita consumption of steel is treated as an important index of the level of socio-economic development in a country. From only three steel plants, a few electric arc furnace-based plants and a mere one million ton (MT) capacity status at the time of its Independence in 1947, India is now the third largest crude steel producer in the world and the largest producer of sponge iron and it is slated to become the second-largest steel producer (after China) in the world by 2017. Presently, steel contributes to nearly two per cent of the gross domestic product of India and employs over 600,000 people. Steel production in the country has increased at a compounded annual growth rate of 6.9 per cent over 2008-2015 with the increasing demand by sectors such as infrastructure, real estate and automobiles at home and abroad. Steel plants, however, needs large capital investments to increase production capacities and are very energy intensive requiring large amount of energy inputs, especially in the form of coal and power. Energy cost, therefore, is a major component of the manufacturing cost and ranges between 40-60% in a typical iron and steel plant. The sector also contributes to about 6.2% of the national Green House Gas emissions in India, resulting in environmental issues in coal mining regions as well as around the iron and steel producing plants. The Indian government has therefore instituted an annual competition to identify the best integrated steel plant based on performance in areas such as efficiency of operations, quality, financial performance, energy, customer satisfaction amongst others to ensure that the existing steel plants operate efficiently with minimum/optimum use of the resources and remain competitive both locally and globally. In addition to its motivational value, it also provides an interesting mechanism for participating plants to improve their performance through benchmarking and by following the best practices and learning from each other. Integrated steel plants in India have been commissioned in last 100+ years under private and public sector undertakings, are of different sizes (installed capacities), and following different production routes to make steel. They follow a complex process involving several stages with multiple inputs and outputs. It will therefore be interesting to study the efficiency and productivity changes in these steel plants over time and also to confirm whether these levels of efficiency and changes are impacted by these factors such as management control, size, age and the route followed. This may give deep insights into the policy options likely to improve the performance of these steel plants by identifying and adopting best practices as well as may give directions to new plants which are being conceived now for adopting best practices to be most efficient.