IISCO
 |
|
| Public Sector Undertaking | |
| Industry | Iron & Steel |
| Founded | 1918 |
| Headquarters | Burnpur, Asansol India |
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Key people
|
Rajesh Kumar Rathi (CEO) |
| Products | Structurals, Rods, Pig Iron |
|
Number of employees
|
9,000 |
IISCO Steel Plant of Steel Authority of India Limited, located at Burnpur in Asansol, is an integrated steel plant with an installed capacity of producing 2.5 million tonnes of liquid steel. The turbulent history of the plant, starting from its pioneering days, has found it a place in industrial history.
It was the second integrated steel plant, after Tata Iron and Steel Co. Ltd. (TISCO) at Jamshedpur, to come up in India and for many years, these two were the only steel plants in the country. It has rich history that goes back to 1870, the days when James Erskine pioneered the production of iron in the country , nearby Kulti. Modern metallurgy was introduced to India at Kulti with the setting up of the first blast furnace using coal instead of charcoal.
James Erskine founded the Bengal Iron Works in 1870. His open top furnaces using raw coal (instead of coke as is now done), poor grade iron ore available locally and bullock carts for transportation went into operation in 1875 at Kulti, then better known as Kendwa.
In the first decade of the last century Kulti also produced steel utilising open hearth furnaces. However, the efforts did not survive the competition from imported steel. Therefore, although Kulti was the first plant in the country to produce both iron and steel, credit is normally given to TISCO because it did it on a continuous basis. World steel production was around 5 million tonnes, against more than a billion tonnes at present.
Operating an industrial unit in those days was extremely difficult. The plant at Kulti changed hands many times. For some time, it was operated under the Public Works Department of the Government. That was in an age when even the concept of public sector had not germinated. Somewhere in the last decade of the nineteenth century Sir Rajendranath Mookerjee and Sir Acquin Martin, who had together founded Martin & Co. bought over the plant at Kulti and helped it to survive.
They were also responsible for opening the first iron ore mine at Pansiraburu in Singhbhum district in what was then Bengal and now Jharkhand, in 1901. The discovery of iron ore effectively laid the foundation for the iron and steel industry in India.
The possibility of a second steel plant in the country was opened up with disruption of supplies of iron and steel from Europe during the First World War. Burn & Co. promoted The Indian Iron & Steel Co. Ltd. in 1918. G.H.Fairhurst is credited with having founded the plant at Burnpur. The blast furnaces were not of the open top type as at Kulti and coke oven batteries were also built to provide coke for the furnaces. However, bullock carts continued to be used for transportation. The first blast furnace went into operation in 1922 and the second in 1924.
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Wikipedia