Steel Authority of India Ltd. (SAIL) has embarked on a major expansion-cum-modernisation plan at a cost of Rs.72,000 crore that aims to push steel production to 24 million tonne by 2013 from 14 million tonne at present.
Asserting that he would brook no further delays in completion of crucial projects in the pipeline, SAIL Chairman C. S. Verma said the company had decided to achieve 100 per cent targets on production and project commissioning asking all its managers to finalise advance action plans.
Mr. Verma, who has undertaken a detailed visit of various plants and expansion programme facilities all over the country in the recent weeks, said the modernisation-cum-expansion programme of the IISCO Steel Plant (ISP) at Burnpur in West Bengal was in the advanced stage of either completion or commissioning. Among project sites he visited are the new coke oven battery and its interconnecting zone, raw material handling system, railway yard, water treatment plant, power & blowing station, coke & sinter despatch yard, basic oxygen furnace and wire & rod mill. The ISP project is being implemented at a cost of Rs.16, 408 crore.
“We have embarked on an ambitious expansion and modernisation plan of Rs.72,000 crore under which production capacity will increase from 14 million tonne a year at present to 24 million tonne by 2013. The plan has already been delayed by three years. We will brook no delay any further,'' Mr. Verma said.
Mr. Verma said the entire country was looking forward to timely commissioning of ISP modernisation. Construction of the state-of-the-art integrated steel plant with capacity to produce 2.5 million tonnes of crude steel annually in a limited area of 953 acres.
Major projects
At present, four major projects — wire rod mill, raw material handling system designed to handle 7.56 million tonnes of raw material, 3.88 million tonnes per annum sinter plant and 2 x 750 tonnes a day oxygen plant — are ready for commissioning. The wire rod mill will produce cold headed quality for fasteners, critical wire rope applications and special quality electrodes.
For the remaining projects, almost all piling work and structural fabrication had been completed.
Supply of equipment for most projects had also been completed and their erection was in an advanced stage of progress, he added.
