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PM to inaugurate 2.5 MT
expansion programme of IISCO Steel Plant
New Delhi, December 22, 2006
The Prime Minister of India, Dr. Manmohan Singh, will lay
the foundation of the Rs. 9,600-crore greenfield modernisation
and expansion programme of IISCO Steel Plant (ISP) of the
Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) at Burnpur in West
Bengal on 24th December 2006. The Chief Minister of West
Bengal, Buddhadev Bhattacharjee, and the Prime Minister’s
Cabinet colleagues Ram Vilas Paswan, Union Minister for
Chemicals & Fertilisers and Steel, and Priya Ranjan Das
Munshi, Union Minister for Information & Broadcasting, will
grace the momentous occasion with their presence. The
expansion of ISP is an integral part of SAIL’s growth plan to
produce 23 million tonnes of hot metal by 2010.
Installation of state-of-the-art environment-friendly and
energy-efficient steel making technology, as envisaged in the
expansion programme, will help ISP multiply its crude steel
production capacity from the present 0.5 million tonnes to 2.5
million tonnes by the year 2010. Among the new facilities that
will be installed as part of ISP’s expansion are a
large-volume blast furnace, coke oven battery, two sinter
plants, three converters with continuous billet and beam
blank/bloom casters, heavy section mill of 0.6 million tonne
capacity and wire rod & bar mill of 1.2 million tonne
capacity. Besides increase in steel production, the new
facilities will provide the plant with a competitive edge in
terms of manpower productivity and other techno-economic
parameters like blast furnace productivity, coke rate, energy
consumption, etc.
The event has a momentous significance for the people of
West Bengal’s Durgapur-Asansol industrial belt, once called
the Ruhr of India and the dreamchild of the state’s first
Chief Minister Dr. B.C. Roy. They have waited for several
decades for the revival of the Burnpur-based plant which was
once Bengal’s pride. The erstwhile Indian Iron & Steel Co.
Ltd. (IISCO), which owned this plant, was a blue-chip company
during the initial post-Independence years and had its shares
traded on the London Stock Exchange. Gradually its fortunes
declined sharply, resulting in a serious setback for Bengal’s
industrial heritage.
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