Durgapur Plant to be invested Rs 400 mio
Indian Steel Ministry has recently announced that it approved an investment of Rupees 400 million ($8.7 million) to be made in Durgapur based Alloy Steel Plant (ASP) of Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL). Rupees 400 million will be used to expand annual capacity and to improve quality of the products of the plant. Steel Ministry stated that investment of Rupees 400 million will be made in the first phase however it has not disclosed the amount of investment that will be made in the second phase. ASP, recording a loss of Rupees 1.7 billion ($37 million) in 2003-04 fiscal year, expects to report operating profit for 2005-06 fiscal year. In the first quarter of 2004-05, sales of the company increased by 24% to 28'300 tons.