The Bhilai Steel Plant (BSP), located in Bhilai, in the Indian state of Chhattisgarh, is India’s first and main producer of steel rails, as well as a major producer of wide steel plates and other steel products. The plant also produces steel and markets various chemical by-products from its coke ovens and coal chemical plant. It was set up with the help of the USSR in 1959.
Bhilai Steel Plant (BSP) is eleven-time winner of the Prime Minister’s Trophy for best integrated steel plant in the country. The plant is the sole supplier of the country’s longest railway tracks, which measure 260 metres (850 ft). The 130 – meter rail, which would be the world’s longest rail line in a single piece, was rolled at URM, Bhilai Steel Plant (SAIL) on 29 November 2016. The plant also produces products such as wire rods and merchant products. Bhilai Steel Plant has been the flagship integrated steel plant unit of the Public Sector steel company, the Steel Authority of India Limited and is its largest and most profitable production facility. It is the flagship plant of SAIL, contributing the largest percentage of profit.
The Bhilai Steel plant was established with Russian collaboration in Durg district of Chhattisgarh and started production in 1959. Agarias, A community of iron smelters helped the discovery of a source of iron ore for Bhilai Steel Plant.
Modernization and expansion programs
Bhilai Steel Plant is raising its capacity of steel production through modernization and new projects. The major upcoming project is the commissioning of a giant blast furnace 4,060 cubic meters in volume, with a hot metal production capacity of 8,000 tonnes per day.
The Bhilai Steel Plant has created steel for one of the railway’s most challenging projects, construction of the 345 km (214 mi) railway line and plane network between Jammu and Baramulla at an investment of ₹19,000 crore (US$2.4 billion). BSP has also developed a special grade of TMT rebars for use in the high-altitude tunnel inside the Banihal Pass. BSP had also developed the special soft iron magnetic plates for the prestigious India-based Neutrino Observatory (INO) project of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC). It has also developed special grade high-tensile (DMR249A) steel for building India’s first indigenously built anti-submarine warfare corvette, INS Kamorta The plant was further expanded on 14 June 2018.
Environment management
Bhilai Steel Plant manages Bhilai Nagar township which has 13 sectors.
Accidents
On 12 June 2014, a gas leak in Bhilai Steel Plant killed six people, including two senior officials. Over 50 people were affected by the accident. A breakdown in the water pump house caused a carbon monoxide leak, which seeped into the premises due to pressure differences along the purification chamber lines. Among the dead were two deputy general managers, while the injured included Central Industrial Security Force personnel as well as workers and officials of the public-sector plant. The leak started at around 6:10 pm IST.
On 9 October 2018, 13 plant employees (including four BSP fire services officials) were killed and 14 people (including six BSP fire services officials) were injured in a blast at the plant. The blast occurred in a pipeline near the coke oven section at the steel plant in the town of Bhilai.
Output
| Product mix | Tonnes/annum |
|---|---|
| Semis | 533,000 |
| Rail & heavy structural | 750,000 |
| Merchant Products (angles, channels, Rrund & TMT bars) | 500,000 |
| Wire Rods (TMT, plain & ribbed) | 420,000 |
| Plates (up to 3600 mm wide) | 950,000 |
| Total saleable steel | 3,153,000 |