Sajjan Jindal-controlled JSW Steel has overtaken Tata Steel in terms of steelmaking capacity in India and will continue to be ahead even as the two companies go into their next phases of expansion.
At present, Tata Steel has an installed capacity of 6.8 million tonnes (mt) at Jamshedpur. JSW Steel has 6.8 mt at Bellary (Vijayanagar Steel Ltd)and another 1 mt at Salem, making it the largest private steel maker in India, behind government-owned Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL) at 13 mt. Salem Works, formerly under Southern Iron & Steel Company, was merged with JSW two years earlier.
JSW Steel will be expanding its production capacity to 11 mt by March 2011, which includes Salem. Tata Steel plans to expand its capacity to 10 mt at Jamshedpur by August 2011.
Addressing a press conference, Sajjan Jindal, vice chairman and managing director, JSW Steel, said the company planned to expand its yearly capacity to 32 mt by 2020, by setting up new projects of 10 mt per annum each in Jharkhand and West Bengal.
Tata Steel has also prepared three new projects of 23 mt capacity across Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Orissa. This will ensure it will eventually become bigger than JSW, but the schedule for this expansion is uncertain. The company is facing land acquisition problems in Chhattisgarh, and in Orissa, 20 per cent of those whose land has been acquired for its plant are yet to move from the site.
However, Tata Steel Managing Director H M Nerurkar recently said work on the Orissa project would start from December.
In Jharkhand, none of the steel companies have made much headway, as the rehabilitation and resettlement policy there is awaited. JSW Steel has an advantage in Bengal, as it already has the land and mines in place.
