Tata Steel’ Kalinga Nagar plant to go on stream by March

The first unit of Tata Steel's Kalinga Nagar project in Odisha will be commissioned in the second half of the current financial year, its managing director H M Nerurkar said in New Delhi on Friday.

"It will be somewhere between October and March,'' Nerurkar said, adding, ''It will have a capacity of 3.5 million tones."

He was speaking to reporters after accepting the `Most Admired Company' award from management consultancy firm Hay Group.

Tata Steel expects steel demand in India to grow 8 per cent in the current financial year. The company plans to produce about one million tonnes more steel this year, taking its domestic capacity to around 8 million tonnes on expanded capacity at Jamshedpur, Nerurkar said.

Tata Steel has invested over Rs11,000 crore in the new plant and has set a capex of Rs4,000 crore for the current financial year. The Kalinga Nagar unit will produce flat steel products.

The company will ramp up Kalinga Nagar plant's production capacity to 5.5 million tonnes per annum by March 2015, Nerurkar said.

The company had earlier kept capex for the current financial year at Rs12,500 crore (about $2.5 billion) – in expanding existing capacity and in fresh activities.

"We have not yet firmed up that. There are lots of options...in next two months, we will finalise it. With Odisha coming up and Jamshedpur expansion, we will require lots of funds. Either during next month results or a month after that, we will announce it," Nerurkar added.