The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) conferred the coveted CII-EXIM Bank Business for Excellence Award for Year 2000 to Tata Steel today at its 27th National Conference and Annual Meet at New Delhi. The Award was received by Dr Jamshed J Irani, MD, Tata Steel from the Hon'ble Union Minister for Parliamentary Affairs and Information Technology, Shri Pramod Mahajan. Thus, after Hewlett Packard and Maruti Udyog Ltd, Tata Steel is the third recipient of the coveted award.

Speaking on the occasion, Dr Irani, MD, Tata Steel said it was a great honour to receive the award on behalf of the Tata Steel family of 48 thousand co-workers whose perseverance had reaped rich dividends after several years and had finally enabled the company to win this award. He said that the award symbolised that Tata Steel was changing, with the exception of its corporate values, at a rapid pace on all fronts. The Award modelled on the lines of the European Foundation for Quality Management had evaluated Tata Steel on the parameters of leadership, policy and strategy, people, partnership and resources, process, people results, society results, customer results and key performance results.

Tata Steel's performance in the last fiscal (1999-2000) had been outstanding.  The Steel Company's profits figures represented a 50% increase over the previous year It registered improvements/increase in its operations such as hot metal, crude steel and saleable steel production. The company also put up a state-of-the-art Cold Rolling Mill at Jamshedpur, at global cost and time to fulfill the needs of its customers. This year too the company surpassed its previous best hot metal, crude steel and saleable steel production and bettered its performance in the area of coke output, sinter making and energy, refractory and power consumption. The company also increased its turnover at the market placeand retained its position as a market leader. Tata Steel's performance is an exception among steel producers in India and the recessionary world-wide trends in the steel industry.

The award is a vindication of the efforts made by a family of 48,000 committed members of Tata Steel who have vowed to transform the company into a global player and delight its customers with its services and products. The long list of awards that Tata Steel has been conferred this year - JRD QV Award, PM's Trophy for the best integrated steel plant, National Award for Corporate Governance, IIMM for Business Excellence, Qimpro Award and the ISO-14001 Certification, to name a few bears testimony to the successful charting of course towards distinction in all spheres of activity by Tata Steel.