SAIL's plans expansion, upgradation for Rs 49,000 cr

New Delhi, Sep 8: PSU major Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL) is undertaking ambitious modernisation and expansion plans to increase the production of hot metal at an indicative cost of Rs 49,000 crores.

The expansion and modernisation programs will include increasing the capacity from the present level of 14.6 Million Tonnes (MT) per annum (2006-2007) to 26 MT per annum by the year 2010-2011.

According to official sources, the expenditure involved in these programmes is proposed to be funded by SAIL itself from its own internal resources and supplemented by market borrowings, as required.

SAIL has taken various steps to rationalise its cost of production, which includes 100 per cent production of steel through Basic Oxygen Furnace (BOF) route, 100 per cent processing of steel through continous casting, value addition by reduction of semi-finished steel, auxiliary fuel injection system in all the blast furnaces (BF), state-of-the-art process control omputerisation/automation, debottlenecking and productivity improvement schemes, secondary refining and augmentation of production facility at coal and iron ore mines.

SAIL plans to develop the area adjoining the Salem Steel Plant into a steel sector Special Economic Zone (SEZ). The proposed SEZ will have units that would be setting up manufacturing facilities in different areas such as utensils, kitchen and hospital wares, machines and equipments for food processing, chemicals and pharmaceutical sectors, pipes and tubes manufacturers etc.

These processing units would be set up by companies other than SAIL. SAIL will provide customised steel input to the processing units in the proposed SEZ. The details of the project will be known only after formulation of project contours such as master planning, Detailed Feasiblity Report, Utility Planning and Market Study.

The scheme is currently in planning stage, the sources added.

UNI