Rethinking Corrosion Cost Management: Toward a Unified Framework for Indian Steel Infrastructure

Abstract

Corrosion has emerged as a major economic and managerial concern for India’s infrastructure sector, eroding between two and four percent of the nation’s GDP annually. While an estimate of the world GDP in corrosion is 3.4 percent, the practice in India continues to be maintenance-focused and reactive, lacking in streamlining enforcement of standards at the technical level. The unavailability of an integrated approach of incorporating managerial frameworks and cost effectiveness continues to be a major barrier to achieving sustainable infrastructure. This paper utilizes a systematic literature review method following the PRISMA protocol to consolidate and analyse literature published between 2010 and 2025 in various academic databases. It surfaces five major thematic clusters spanning the economic burden and the lifecycle costing proactive and reactive corrosion management systems with organizational capability, control, and policy or institution framework. The study, as a result, also proposes a Unified corrosion-cost management framework and determines the variable. It also accounts for the organizational logic within governance and decision-making framework. In doing so, the frameworks shift the paradigm from corrosion control being a maintenance routine to strategic management. It establishes the rationale for conducting national corrosion audits and subsidized CMS, the central database on corrosion-cost, to be institutionalized in India with the expectation of improving sustainability, cost effectiveness, India’s infrastructure for greater dependability.