Fire hit production in Bhilai Steel Plant

Bhilai, February 1, 2010: A major fire today disrupted production in the Bhilai Steel Plant.

"A major fire broke out in the main cable tunnel of the Bhilai Steel Plant, disrupting power supply to all the plants of Bhilai and hitting functioning in all the seven Blast Furnaces," Chief Public Relations Officer of the BSP S P S Jaggi told ChhattisgarhTopNews.Com.

The workforce needed at least a day's time to restore normalcy, Jaggi said.

The steel plant has an annual turnover of Rs 18,000 crore and the fire had affected production of over 20,000 tonnes of hot metal, officials said.

BSP is also the largest producer and leading rail maker of the world, which had produced over 15 million tonnes of rails or 2.7 lakh km in length. Bhilai is also the sole supplier of India's longest rail tracks of 260 metres.

It also export rails to 10 countries, including South Korea, New Zealand, Argentina, Turkey, Iran, Egypt, Ghana, Bangladesh and Malaysia.

For modernisation and capacity expansion of the Bhilai Steel Plant to increase its capacity to 7.5 million tonnes of Hot Metal and seven million tonnes of crude steel per annum Rs 11,262 crore was being invested, plant officials said.

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