In a day of significant developments, Nagarnar Steel Plant in Bastar region of Chhattisgarh received the first rake of imported coking coal into the plant, a company press release informed on Monday.
The company also commissioned its Wagon Tippler at the Raw Material Handling System (RMHS) thereby bringing the Plant commissioning to its penultimate step.
N Baijendra Kumar, IAS, CMD, NMDC in his message read out on the occasion touched upon the significance of the function while applauding the support of Indian Railways in supporting NMDC’s efforts.
“Today a great milestone has been achieved that has put us on the threshold of commissioning the steel plant. This would not have been possible without the support of Umesh Singh, GM, ECoR and his team, the State and Central governments and all stakeholders”, he said.
Kumar added: “I congratulate the steel plant collective in making this possible”.
Dr NK Nanda, Director Technical, NMDC dwelt upon the support of Railways since the inception of NMDC that helps the company reach its target.
“One of the positive factors that propelled NMDC to think of setting up a steel Plant at Bastar was the assurance from Railways that they would facilitate raw material movement,” he informed.
He thanked the Railways for standing firm beside NMDC and partnering its success story.
Umesh Singh, General Manager, East Coast Railway flagged off the 1st Rake through the Nagarnar Steel Plant siding at Amaguda station this morning in the presence of Dr. NK Nanda, Director Technical, NMDC, Prasant Dash, Executive Director and Project Incharge of Nagarnar Steel Plant, Sanjay Panjiyar, General Manager (Projects & Maintenance), D K Mohanty, General Manager (Operations) of Nagarnar Steel Plant, M S Mathur, Divisional Railway Manager (Waltair Division), and senior officials from Railways, NMDC and Nagarnar Steel Plant.
The 4106 tonnes of coal received today in 59 wagons is part of the first consignment of 80,000 tonnes of Coal that has been imported from Australia and offloaded at Visakhapatnam Port last week.
Imported coking coal and indigenous coal is blended and charged into the Blast Furnace along with iron ore to produce Hot Metal.
Umesh Singh, General Manager, East Coast Railways, spoke about the symbiotic relation between Indian Railways and NMDC and assured that Railways shall continue to support every development effort of NMDC.
He emphasized upon the significance of the first rake moving into the steel plant on Constitution Day and commended the efforts of NMDC and Railways in helping bringing about a transformation in Bastar.
“Nagarnar is the future Bhilai”, he asserted, alluding to the transformation that Bastar will witness, akin to that brought about at Bhilai after establishing the steel plant”, Singh said.
The coal received today was unloaded at the RMHS (Raw Material Handling System) inside the Steel Plant where Dr NK Nanda inaugurated the Wagon Tippler, a mechanism that helps unload incoming raw material speedily. Rather than offloading material manually, each Wagon is affixed onto the Wagon Tippler that turns it upside down, delivering it of its load into the designated Hopper and thereon to conveyors that carry the material onwards to its destination within the Plant.
In all, four Wagon Tipplers will be utilized at Nagarnar Steel Plant to offload 12 million tonnes of incoming raw material (iron ore, coking coal, limestone, etc.) that would be required annually to produce three million tonnes of steel.
The Wagon Tippler is a critical part of the Rs 1395 crores Raw Material Handling System (RMHS) of Nagarnar Steel Plant. With these two major developments, NMDC looks forward to starting production at Nagarnar Steel Plant by July next year after deploying the requisite manpower in various operational positions. Even as these major developments are underway, the steel plant management is also meticulously following up on meeting all Safety and environmental norms, the press release stated.