By Bappaditya Chatterjee
Kalinganagar (Odisha), March 11 (IANS) Integrated commissioning of all units of Tata Steel's Odisha plant will be done by September this year, according to a company official.
"Integrated commissioning of all the units of the plant will take another six months," Rajiv Kumar, vice president (Operations-KPO) Kalinganagar Project, said at an interactive session organised by the company.
With the integrated commissioning of the first phase in Kalinganagar plant, the company would augment its total production in India to 13 million tonnes per annum (mtpa).
He said that the greenfield plant would produce three mtpa of steel in the first phase and later the capacity would be ramped up to six mtpa. No time frame for scaling up the capacity was announced.
"We need to have the market share intact as the Indian steel market grows. Accordingly, we will plan that," he said when asked about the time period for ramping up of the production to six mtpa.
The officer said the total investment would be around Rs.25,000 crore in the first phase of the project.
The Kalinganagar plant will be spread over 3,470 acres of land, of which, about 900 acres is not under company's possession at present.
"Out of the total land required, we are in the process of getting 900 acres," he said.
The company will eventually source iron ore from Khondbon mine located in the Keonjhar district of Odisha.
"We have a dedicated iron ore mine at Khonbond around 200 kms away from the plant. The mine is being developed. Right now, we are getting ore from Joda (Joda East Iron Mine)," he said.
"Close to Rs.2,000 crore is being invested to develop the mine and investment for mining development is separate from the Rs.25,000 crore investment in the Kalinganagar plant," he said.
Hundred percent flat, lighter and higher tensile strength steel will be produced at the plant.
The product portfolio will be expanded to high-grade flat products for application in ship building, defence equipment, energy and power, infrastructure, aviation and lifting and excavation, Kumar said.
A 202 MW of gas-based captive power plant using gases discharged by coke oven and blast furnace will also be commissioned at the plant.
The company had signed an MoU with the Odisha government way back in 2004 for setting up the plant. Subsequently, some events in 2006 over land acquisition and police firing pushed the project back for about four years, he said.
Kumar said: "Resettlement and Rehabilitation (R&R) initiatives taken by the company helped to gain the confidence of the people."
Later in 2011, the company sought its board's approval for the revised scheme.
"We took a major drive in R&R initiatives. So far, 1,084 families have been rehabilitated out of the total 1,234 displaced families. 150 families are yet to be rehabilitated," said Parthasarathi Mishra, chief of human resource management at Kalinganagar steel and Gopalpur project of the company.
(Bappaditya Chatterjee was in Kalinganagar at the invitation of Tata Steel. He can be contacted at bappaditya.c@ians.in)
