VSP SALES CROSS RS. 3000 CRORE MARK

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Vishakhapatnam Steel Plant (VSP) of Rastriya Ispat Nigam Ltd. (RINL), a PSU of the Steel Ministry continued to maintain its upward trend in production, marketing, financials and human relations front which resulted in excellent performance during the period April-October 2003. For the first time since inception, the sales crossed Rs. 3000 crore mark during the period.

VSP produced 2.38 million tonnes of hot metal, 2.01 million tonnes of liquid steel and 1.79 million tonnes of saleable steel during the period April-October, 2003 thus achieving a growth of 5,4 and 5 per cent respectively over the corresponding period last year.

Despite festive and rainy season, strategic marketing initiatives coupled with speedy decision making helped VSP to post best ever sales of Rs. 452 crore in October which is highest for any month of October since inception. This represents a growth of 29 per cent over same month last year of Rs. 351 crore. With this, the cumulative sales turnover between April-October'03 touched a high of Rs. 3006 crore, an impressive growth of 26 per cent over same period last year of Rs. 2382 crore. The domestic sales grew by 27 per cent and exports were up by 23 per cent during the period.

On the techno-economic front, VSP recorded a blast furnace productivity of 1.78 tonnes/cubic metre/day, specific energy consumption of 6.10 giga calories/ton of liquid steel, labour productivity of 257.43 tonnes/man-year during the period with significant improvement over the corresponding period last year.