Jamshedpur, April 23: Embarking on to new millennium and in addition to the modernisation, the commercial trial run of 16 billion state of the art Cold Rolling Mill (CRM) was commissioned at Tata Steel in Jamshedpur on April 24, 2000. Present on the occasion were Ratan Tata, the then chairman of Tata Steel and Tata group; Dr. Jamshed J Irani, the then Managing Director of Tata Steel; and other dignitaries.
Mr Ratan Tata stated that the idea of setting up the Cold Rolling Mill was not only to meet the growing and diversified demands of the steel industry, but also to move forward with the Tata family’s vision of being a part of modern India. The Japanese ambassador to India, H Hirabayashi, considered the event as one of the finest examples of Indo-Japanese cooperation.
Set up in a record time of twenty six and a half months, the 1.2 million tonne Cold Rolling Mill was built in collaboration with world’s leading steel producer, Nippon Steel Corporation, and Hitachi Corporation Limited. It aimed to produce a wide range of cold rolled and coated products to cater to the variable needs of automotive and construction industries, household appliances, furniture and general engineering components.
In its initial year, the plant produced 83,000 tonnes, and 560 people were employed.
