The modernisation and expansion of Bhilai Steel Plant (BSP) are likely to be completed by March 2016, officials stated.
Notably, SAIl has five integrated steel plants namely, Bhilai Steel Plant in Chhattisgarh, Rourkela Steel Plant in Odhisa, IISCO Steel Plant in West Bengal, Durgapur Steel Plant in West Bengal, Bokaro Steel Plant in Jharkhand and three special steel plants namely, Alloy Steel Plant in West Bengal, Salem Steel Plant in Tamil Nadu, Visvesvaraya Iron and Steel Plant in Karnataka.
During the financial year 2014-15, the capacity utilization of SAIl was 79% and that of RINl was 113%, officials stated.
Steel is a deregulated sector and the role of Government is limited to that of a facilitator. The decisions to modernise and expand steel plants are essentially taken by the respective companies, based on commercial considerations, officials stated.
SAIl and RINl have undertaken modernisation and expansion programme funded by their own sources. Modernization and expansion of Rourkela, IISCO, Durgapur, Bokaro & Salem Steel Plants of SAIl and Vizag steel plant of RINl have been completed.
SAIl has also started setting up the Beneficiation and Pellet Plant of the Bhilai Steel Plant (BSP) at Dallirajhara mines in Chhattisgarh.
The project is being assisted by public sector MECON ltd for required works needed for the plant, officials
stated.
Notably, the Dallirajhara mines is one of the two principal sources of iron ore supply to the Bhilai Steel Plant.
Further, the initial stretch of the first phase of the ambitious 235-km-long Dallirajhara-Rowghat-Jagdalpur Railway line project in Bastar division of Chhattisgarh has also been completed, officials stated.
In all, 17 km Rail track has been completed in the first phase and Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh has expressed happiness over the achievement.
A successful trial run of a Railway diesel engine was also carried out between Dallirajhara till Gudum village at the speed of 20 km per hour recently.
BSP has accorded the highest priority to taking effective measures in the areas of resource conservation, pollution prevention, waste reduction and conversion of waste to wealth, officials stated.
Effective monitoring and analysis has ensured that BSPs compliance is well within the regulatory requirements, they stated.
The ISO 14001 certification has been implemented in the entire Plant and township as well as in Dallirajhra Mines. The plant has introduced environment friendly coal dust injection system in the Blast Furnaces, de-dusting system and electrostatic precipitators in other units. Besides, Clean Development Mechanisms for green house gas reduction, BSP has taken up the replacement of Ozone Depleting Substance CTC, aided by UNDP.
The best plant-based project and best patent awards were conferred on Bhilai Steel Plant (BSP) for the project designed and implemented jointly by its Wire Rod Mill (WRM) and SAIl’s Research and Development Centre for Iron & Steel (RDCIS) on “Control system for billet feeding and mill setting mechanisms at Wire Rod Mill”, at the annual award ceremony held at RDCIS Ranchi.
The billet discharging area was the key concern area for WRM as it affects production of all the four strands of the mill. The area has mechanisms like DOR, distributor, pinch rolls etc, for billet discharging in different strand of the mill, officials stated.
These were controlled by old Contactor schemes and were enquiring continuous manual intervention from two control posts. Positioning system of the distributor used to give frequent problems of misalignment due to improper coordination and causing mill delays.
To overcome all these problems, an integrated approach has been envisaged by WRM(E) and RDCIS for upgradation of the control systems and drive schemes of billet distribution scheme, pinch rolls, screw down and displacement mechanism of the main stands.
The system is based on state-of-the-art measurement technology, distributed PlC architecture and digital drives along with the new control desks of Pulpit 2.
The entire system was installed and commissioned within the short capital repair period of the mill. It has since been working successfully as a result of dedicated efforts of the team, leading to reduction in mill delays, officials stated.