By Shivakumar G Malagi / Feb 18-2009/Bellary
Jindal Steel Works seems to have steeled itself in these tough times to commission the nation’s largest blast furnace at its Vijayanagar plant, modeled after the global steel major Gwangyang Steel Mill of South Korea's POSCO.
With the commissioning of the 4019-cubic metre, Blast Furnace-3 on Thursday in just 31 months, JSW, which spent Rs. 6,000 crore on it, expects to generate 8,000 direct jobs.
C. Shivasagar Rao, CEO and Joint MD, said BF-3 is the most modern furnace in the world, capable of achieving 10 mtpa.
“With 7 mtpa, JSW now equals the largest single steel plant of India (Tata Steels). When it reaches the 10 million tonne phase, it will become the largest single plant in India,” Rao said. “In a period of the worst global economic crisis, when other mills are shutting down, we are in hurry to create more steel for the development of the nation. But, I hate to export iron ore. That was done when India was not independent. We do not want to do that again, we should earn foreign exchange exporting finished goods, not the iron ore,” remarked Sajjan Jindal, vice-chairman and managing director of JSW.
Admitting that Tata Steels and JSW were neck-to-neck in the race for steel capacity, he said, “Today, we are ahead in production. But with its expansion plans, Tata Steels is pretty close to us. Let’s see who will produce more this year. I am confident that we will emerge big with the commissioning of the 10 mtpa project very shortly.” Ironically, JSW has been unable to get hold of a captive mine so far in this mineral-rich district.
This is despite the State government’s new mining policy laying focus on value-addition projects. Jindal attributed this to “long pending legal issues” and “hidden interests” in the mining business.
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