~Celebrates the hundred year saga of iron-making~

Tata Steel achieved yet another milestone in its industrial history with the completion of 100 years of its Blast Furnace operations. It was on December 2, 1911 that the plant at Jamshedpur became active when the Blast Furnace was blown for the first time. Steel production commenced a few weeks later on February 16, 1912.

It has been a long and eventful journey over the last 100 years. For a plant with an initial capacity to produce 160,000 tonnes of pig iron, 100,000 tonnes of ingot steel, 70,000 tonnes of rails, beams and shapes and 20,000 tonnes of bars, hoops and rods, the Jamshedpur Works of Tata Steel has come a long way, and is well on track to becoming a 10 million tonne steel plant in a few months from now.

In the early years, the plant essentially consisted of a battery of 180 non-recovery coke ovens and 30 by-product ovens with a sulphuric acid plant and two blast furnaces, each of 350 tonnes per day capacity, and a 300-tonne hot metal mixer, four open hearth furnaces of 50-tonne capacity each, one steam engine driven 40-inch reversing blooming mill, one 28-inch reversing combination rail and structural mill with reheating furnaces and one 16-inch and two 10-inch rolling mills. In the early days, an average of 6,300 people was engaged daily at the Works by the Company and its contractors.

Even as the Jamshedpur Works – whose present capacity stands at 6.8 million tonnes per annum -- is set to become a 10 million tonne steel plant a few months from now, the philosophy of the Founder that “in a free enterprise, the community is not just another stakeholder in business, but is, in fact, the very purpose of its existence” continues to be the beacon that guides the Company in all its activities.

About Tata Steel:
Established in 1907 as Asia's first integrated private sector steel company, Tata Steel Group is amongst the leading steel manufacturers in the world with an annual crude steel capacity of over 28 million tonnes per annum (mtpa). It is now the world's second-most geographically-diversified steel producer, with operations in 26 countries and a commercial presence in over 50 countries. The Tata Steel Group, with a turnover of US$ 26.64 billion in FY '11, has over 81,000 employees across five continents and is a Fortune 500 company. The Group’s vision is to be the world’s steel industry benchmark in “Value Creation” and “Corporate Citizenship” through the excellence of its people, its innovative approach and overall conduct. Underpinning this vision is a performance culture committed to aspiration targets, safety and social responsibility, continuous improvement, openness and transparency. In 2008, Tata Steel India became the first integrated steel plant in the world, outside Japan, to be awarded the Deming Application Prize 2008 for excellence in Total Quality Management.