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Tata Steel sets up India's most modern cold rolling mill

The much-awaited commercial trial run of the Rs 16-billion state-of-the-art cold rolling mill, or CRM, of the Tata Steel, or TISCO, was commissioned in Jamshedpur today by Ratan Tata, chairman, Tata Steel and Tata Group of Companies.

Set up in a record time of 26-and-a-half months, the 1.2-million tonne capacity plant was built in technical collaboration with the world's second-largest steel producer Nippon Steel Corporation of Japan and the Hitachi Corporation Limited.

It will produce a wide range of cold rolled and coated products to suit variable needs of the automotive and construction industries and for different household appliances, furniture and general engineering components.

Hailing the role of the Japanese and some other foreign collaborators in setting up of the plant in record time, Ratan Tata said that the idea of setting up the CRM was not only to meet the growing and diversified needs of the steel industry, but also in tune with the Tata family's vision of being a part of modern India.

TISCO managing director Jamshedji J Irani and also the brain behind the massive project, said that today's launching of the trial runs of CRM was the culmination of Tata Steel's decade-long Rs 70-billion modernisation programme, heralding a new era.

However, the actual commercial production of the plant would begin from the middle of the current fiscal, Irani said.

Among its major customers are giants in the automotive industry like Ford, Hyundai, Maruti and BMW, apart from the Godrej, Whirlpool, Balmer & Lawrie and ABB.

"At the present pace of work, we hope to achieve 100 per cent utilisation of the plant in about 13 months," Irani said.

The Japanese ambassador to India H Hirabayashi described the setting up of the cold rolling mill as one of the finest examples of Indo-Japanese cooperation.

Emphasising the commitment of Tata Steel to meet the increasing industrial challenges and demands to suit the diversifying needs of customers, Tata said that the new CRM was well equipped to meet the increasing demands for cold rolling sheets not only in India, but also abroad.

Addressing a press conference later, Irani claimed that in the present industrial scenario, where the economy was fast picking up and the recession-affected steel industry looking up for a bright future, the CRM had targetted to touch the cent per cent production mark in just about 13 months.

UNI

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