The Bastar administration and Chatttisgrah Government once again emphasised its interest and support to NMDC’s upcoming 3 MTPA steel plant at Nagarnar when Dilip Wasnikar, IAS & Commissioner, Bastar Division visited the project site on Sunday to inaugurate the Coal Transfer Car at the Coke Oven Complex of Nagarnar Steel, NMDC officials informed.
Arvind Ekka, SDM, Jagdalpur Prashant Dash, Executive Director, Nagarnar Iron & Steel Plant, senior officials of Nagarnar Steel Plant and MECON, the consultancy partner and workers’ representatives and officers from BEC, Bhilai were present on the occasion.
With this inauguration, one set of complete equipment has been put in place for commissioning of the Coke Oven Project.
The Coke Transfer Car has been manufactured and supplied by Bhilai Engineering Corporation, Bhilai which has also been awarded the EPC (Engineering and Project Construction) contract for the complete Coke Oven package at a cost of Rs 1978 crores.
At the inauguration Wasnikar said that “NMDC’s prestigious Nagarnar Steel Plant project is something which not just the people of Bastar, but the entire country was eagerly looking forward to”.
He appreciated the pace of work and expressed confidence in NMDC’s capabilities to commission the project by the end of the year. It may be recalled that in late March this year Dhananjay Dewangan (IAS), Collector Bastar along with Ritesh Agarwal, CEO, Bastar visited the project site for commissioning of the 3rd Power sub-station.
Also, in the past fortnight, Dr. N K Nanda, Director (Technical) and Sandeep Tula, Director (Personnel) had commissioned the electric locomotive and Pusher Car at the Coke Oven Complex. Work is progressing at a feverish pace to enable commissioning of the steel plant by the end of the year. The Project activity has accelerated after N Baijendra Kumar, IAS, took over as CMD in September last.
Setting up an integrated steel plant such as the one coming up at Nagarnar requires commissioning of several individual units and linking each of them to downstream and upstream units to integrate the working of the plant as a whole to make it ready for producing steel. The Rs 15525 crore Nagarnar Steel Plant project has been consistently and successfully meeting milestones to move towards its commissioning later this year.