VISAKHAPATNAM STEEL PLANT

Vizag Steel, also known as Visakhapatnam Steel Plant (Telugu: విశాఖ ఉక్కు కర్మాగారం), is a steel companybased in the outskirts of Visakhapatnam, India. Its main plant is located 26 kilometers from Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, it is among India's premier steel mills. It has also been conferred the Mini Ratna status. Its vision - Infrastructuring India.

Vizag Steel bagged the first prize in Energy Conservation constituted by Ministry Of Power, Government Of India, consecutively for the last two years primarily due to its focus on energy conservation, cost reduction and waste utilization. Vizag Steel Plant today is among the lowest cost steel producers in the world. The Visakhapatnam Steel Plant has been awarded the Safety Innovation Award - 2006 by the Institution Of Engineers for its "outstanding contributions in the field and adoption of the best and the most innovative safety practices". The plant was awarded the Prime Minister's trophy for the best steel plant in the country, for the year 2002-2003.

VSP added another feather to its cap by bagging six Government of India, Vishwakarma Rashtriya Puraskar (VRP) Awards at national level out of total number of 28 awards announced by Ministry Of Labour, Government of India.

The Visakhapatnam Steel Plant was designed way back in late 1960s but by the time its chief Consultants - MN Dastur & Company's - report and revised reports were accepted in 1984 to start construction, it had become the most expensive steel plant ever to be constructed, deisigned to produce about 3 million tonnes (Mt) of processed steel per year.

Ukkunagaram Township

The beautiful and well planned township for the employees of the plant is called Ukkunagaram (ukku is Telugu for steel, nagaram is Telugu for town).

The design of the Township itself is state-of-the-art. The designers (Auroville trust - Pondicherry) followed the Roman Circular design for the layout of homes and roads to keep the distances equal between any two points within the township. It is a modern township with underground sewerage, storm water drains and underground power cabling.

There are 11 sectors in the Township(12th sector under construction), oldest of them being sectors 1, 2 and 3, and Sector 7 which is the exclusive domain of the directors and the chairman's homes. Other sectors came into being as the plant's staffing matured. On the average, each sectore consists of about 400 and above housing units, which vary from multi-storied quarters (3 floors) to single family homes. There are also bungalows exclusively for the directors of the plant.

Sector 1 Russian complex used to house the Russians who came to erect and commission the first blast furnace "Godavari", The RMHP, Sinter, and Coke Oven Batteries I & II.

The beauty of the Township is that it sits in the cradle of the unspoilt forest belt starting at the Valleys of Araku through Yelamanchili to Narsipatnam. The township comes under the mandate of the Town Administration. The continued afforestation efforts of the management has ensured a green and pollution-free environment and thereby creating a unique ecosystem in itself. The township has well kept roads, regulated traffic. The township also has all market places, parks, clubs, sports facilities exclusively for the employees and their dependents.

The township has become a place for harmonious living.There are many well made Temples,churches and a Mosque for spiritual progress.

Ukkunagaram Gaana Sabha : This is a cultural organisation established in the year 1994 as a forum for fine arts especially traditional Music. The sabha regularly -monthly conducts performing artist of merit, yearly conducting music festivals , honoring great living artists of India. The children of the budding township are given to wider exposure to the best form of art and music.

Some of the prominent schools / College in the township are

1. Kendriya Vidyalaya Central School (KV) in Sector 1
2. DAV public school in sector-3
3. Delhi Public School in sector-8
4. Depaul School (DePS) in sector-8
5. Jyothi Bala Vihar(Kindergarten) in sector-2,5,9
6. Chaitanya Public School in Sector 11
7. Shiva Shivani Public School in Sector 9
8. Little Angels School in Sector 10
9. Aurobindo Public School near Ravi Rays petrol bunk on Main approach road.
10. Chaitanya College (ALFA) on main approach road opp Kanithi

DELHI PUBLIC SCHOOL->

Last but not the least is the vistas that the Big Kanithi Balancing reservoir offers. This large mass of water reservoir is for the captive consumption of the plant and the township alike and sits between the Township and the NH5. It draws its water from a special canal built exclusively for it from the River Yeleru, a tributary of the great river Godavari.

The road that leads from the plant plaza main gate into the township actually travels ahead as a bypass to the busy NH5 and skips Anakapalli directly to Yelamanchili and Tuni, cutting almost 20 miles (30 km) on the road route from Visakhapatnam to Vijayawada

For recreation of Officers, there are 2 Clubs in township, Ukkunagaram Club in Sector-4 and Steel Club in Sector-1. For all others there are Community welfare centers, CWC-1 in Sector-5 and CWC-2 Sector-9.

About the plant

The plant is spread across a sprawling 19,000 acres (77 km²) of which only 5,000 acres (20 km²) are used so far. The rest is still pristine shrub forest land.

The company also has a blast furnace grade limestone captive mine at Jaggayyapeta, a captive mine for dolomite at Madharam, a manganese ore captive mine at Cheepurupalli. All the captive mines are located in the state of Andhra Pradesh. It has also got a mining lease for river sand in River Champavathi. The Plant has two main entrances—the first and the original Balacheruvu gate towards the satellite village of Gajuwaka, and the newer gate that opens to the Township and straight onto the NH5.

Coke ovens & raw material handling plant (COBPP and RMHP)

The Coke Ovens of VSP are engineering feats by themselves. They are the tallest ovens constructed thus reducing pollution considerably. Besides a bio-chemical plant separately undertakes the treatment of effluents. By-products like benzene, toulene, xylene, naphthalene, coaltar, croste oil, pitch, ammonium sulfate and benzol products are also recovered from the coke ovens gas. Benzene and toluene are produced through hydro refining and extractive distillation process, a unique technology. The benzene produced is of very high purity (99.93%). VSP produces, among other by-products, pushkala a prime fertilizer based on ammonium sulphate.

Sinter plant

Iron ore fines, coke breeze, limestone and dolomite along with recycled metallurgical wastes are converted into agglomerated mass at the sinter plant, which forms 80% of iron bearing charge in the blast furnace. The sinter plant comprises two sinter machines each having 312 square metres of grate area with a total production capacity of 5.256 million tonnes per annum.

Blast furnaces

Two blast furnaces "Godavari" and "Krishna" with an effective volume of 3200 m³ one of the largest in the country are built with Russian collaboration . These blast furnace produces about 6000 tonnes of molten iron per day. Its novel circular cast house with four tap holes ensures continuous tapping of hot metal. The annual production capacity of these Blast Furnaces is 3.4 million tonnes of liquid iron.

Steel melt shop & Continuous casting

Three top-blown LD converters, each of 133 m³ volume, produce a total of 3.6 million tonnes of liquid steel per annum. This liquid steel thus produced is cast in six, 4 strand bloom casters. A special feature in energy conservation is the collection of converter gas to be used as a fuel in the plant. The entire molten steel at VSP is continuously cast at the radial type continuous casting machines resulting in significant energy conservation and better quality steel. 100% continuous casting on such a large scale has been conceived for the first time in India.

Technology for Caster has been obtained from erstwhile USSR while Technologuy in LD shop is a mix of USSR for mechanical equipment, Ansaldo Italy for Electric DC drives, Brown Boveri Kent -UK, for Distributed control systems and Clecim - France for Gas cleani

Secondary facilities like Injection Refining - UP Temperature (IRUT)and Ladle furnace have been added subsequently

SMS is presently headed by DGM(Steel) Mr. AK Burnwal and HOD(SMS) Mr. P.N Rao.

Rolling mills

The cast blooms from continuous casting department are heated and rolled in the three high speed and fully automated rolling mills namely *Light & Medium Merchant Mill (LMMM),Presently(2007- )headed by Mr.Subrata Chakraborty,DGM(LMMM) with Sectioal in-charges Mr.KV Vidyasagar,DGM(operation),Mr.Partha Pratim Ganguly,DGM(Mechanical)and Mr.B Tirumal Rao,DGM(Electrical).LMMM comprises two rolling mills,namely Billet Mill and Bar Mill.Billet Mill produces 125X125 mm square billets and supplies to Bar Mill.Billets are produced for Wire rod mill also. *Wire Rod Mill (WRM I & II), and *Medium Merchant & Structural Mill (MMSM) to produce various long products like reinforcement bars, rounds, squares, flats, angles, channels, billets, wire rods etc. Technologies adopted at rolling mills include world-class Stelmor and Tempcore processes.