The financial health of any business organization decides its future. Analyzing ratios of an organization provides not only a clear picture of the present position of the firm, but also all futuristic dimensions of its business. These ratios are more useful to the stakeholders, investors and to the entrepreneur. For better understanding and conceptualizing these ratios, an attempt has been made in this regard with steel giant in India namely Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL).

The Iron and Steel Industry forms the basic foundation of the entire modern industrial structure in all advanced nations of the world. All types of machinery for various manufacturing industries as well as for agriculture is prepared from iron and steel and it is most important for transport industries like railways, shipping and road vehicles. Thus major heavy and tertiary industries are dependent on this industry for its preliminary requirements. Therefore it has been rightly called a `Mother Industry'. Indian Steel Industry is the 7^th largest Steel Producer in the world. In the words of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, "Steel was a symbol of the strength of the economy and a portent of the glory of India to the future".

India is perceived as a major economy, waiting to take off. It is emerging as a major market for the energy goods and services. It is on the threshold of witnessing growing competition from the multinational companies in the world. There is no doubt that the intensity of competition would increase in the coming years and as such, public sector companies would have to pull up their socks and be prepared for battles. It is quite clear that unless PSEs (Public Sector Enterprises) improve, it is very difficult to survive because of keen competition. The future of PSEs and subsequent betterment of an economy in our country depends on the efficient functioning of these enterprises. Now the country-wide trend is towards privatization of public enterprises, mainly because of the poor performance of the PSEs, particularly in India. It is generally accepted that performance of PSEs is not satisfactory when compared with that of the private enterprises. Instead of talking about various issues related to privatization or disinvestment, it is worthwhile to find out how the performance of PSEs could be improved. A study is undertaken to evaluate the financial performance of a large, well known public sector enterprise in India namely, SAIL, as it was ranked 19^th in the world top-steel producing companies, and based on steel producing companies in India, SAIL was Ranked No. 1.

Accounting World Magazine, Financial Performance of Steel Authority of India Limited, Business Organization, Public Sector Enterprise, Indian Steel Industry, Compound Annual Growth Rate, Techno-Economic Factors, Earning Before Depreciation Interest and Tax, EBDIT, Global Recession, Consumer Durables.