Bokaro Steel Plant (BSl) a unit of Steel Authority of India limited (SAIl) struggling hard to increase its profit amid dollar getting stronger and rupee turning down.
“Backed by good production BSl’s profit was 306 crore rupees in last financial year. There are positive signs for current financial year, we have achieved an impressive first quarter production in this fiscal through meticulous planning and concerted efforts,” said Anutosh Maitra CEO BSl.We are concentrating on ‘maintenance work’ of our existing units in a bid to minimise our production cost in the current financial year, he said.
Maintenance works are going on war foot basis at two batteries of Coke oven. The production costs will be minimised as soon as the coke oven and sintering plants starts functioning after the maintenance work gets completed. Capital repair is also on at Sintering plant, he said.Now we are importing 8.5 lakhs MT Coke for production which increased our production cost, Maitra said.
“The upcoming Cold Rolling Mill- III (CRM-III) is ready and we have already produced 6 steel coils on trail. Very soon it will start contributing to the wide product portfolio of this exclusively flat steel producing plant”, Maitra added.Notably, the plant posted 4.2 percent growth in production of Hot Rolled Coil (HRC), 11.5 percent in Saleable Steel and a substantial 46 percent jump in Special Steels production in June 2013 compared to CPlY. Production growth of 3.8 percent in Cast Slab, 1.3 percent in HR Coil, 9.7 percent in Saleable Steel and 8.8 percent growth in Special Steels were registered in Q1 compared to CPlY, BSl officials informed.
Close on the heels of posting growth in Hot Metal (2.8 percent), Crude Steel (3 percent), Saleable Steel (0.1 percent), Cast Slab (1 percent) and HR Coil (4.1 percent) production during fiscal 2013 with only four of the five Blast Furnaces in operation, the Plant is upbeat with its consistent improvement in Q1 of fiscal 2014.The Plant has dedicated the fiscal to boost equipment health and reliability, the upkeep of the township and health-care facilities. We have taken some major initiatives under our CSR activities.
Two Technical training programme would be conducted for the youths under our CSR activities. They would be trained for metal work (fabrication) and sheet cutting work while a new project of women empowerment through free training in handloom and silk yarn production in association with JHARKRAFT would also be conducted, Maitra said.