[1] The modernisation and expansion programme of IISCO steel plant was completed at a cost of over 16,000 crores.

[3] Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister, laid the foundation for the green field modernisation and expansion of IISCO Steel Plant at Burnpur on 24 December 2006.

[7] Rawmaterial Handling System designed to handle 7.56 million tonnes of raw materials annually,[8] Sinter Plant: Two sinter machines each with grate area of 204 m2[7] Blast Furnace: The 4,160 m3 Blast Furnace Kalyani is one of the largest in the country.

Prior to this the largest blast furnce was at Rourkela Steel Plant of SAIL with a useful volume of 4,060 m3.

[9] Basic Oxygen Furnace: Three 150-tonne capacity BOFs to produce about 2.55 million tonnes of liquid steel annually.

[11] Several attempts were made in India in the 18th and 19th centuries to produce iron and steel, but none of them succeeded.

The steel making facilities went into production but closed down after two years as the operations were unremunerative.

In 1918, G.H.Fairhurst took over as general manager of Bengal Iron & Steel Co. By then the company was doing well and even exporting pig iron to Japan, the Far East, Mesopotamia and Russia, but the directors of the company, living in London, were not interested in expanding its business any further.

Promoted by Burn & Co., the Indian Iron and Steel Company was incorporated on 11 March 1918.

[15][13][14] From the earliest stages the company felt the need for captive iron ore and coal mines.

Prospecting by R.Soubolle in Singhbhum and Manbhum led to the discovery of rich iron ore deposits.

The company also entered into coal mining operations at Chasnala, Jitpur (both in Jharia coalfield) and Ramnagar colliery near Kulti.

[16] The Steel Corporation of Bengal was incorporated on 20 April 1937 with Burn & Co. as managing agents.

SCOB established steel making facilities at Napuria, adjacent to the Hirapur Works of IISCO.

It was estimated by a Technical Mission of the World Bank that steel demand in India would touch 6 million tonnes by 1960.

Eugene Black, president of the World Bank, visited India in connection with the study of the Technical Mission.

The foreign exchange component of the expansion programme was met with a loan from the World Bank.

Two coke oven batteries, two new blast furnaces, each with a capacity of 1,200 tonnes per day, additional open hearth furnaces (taking the total to seven), Morgan continuous billet mill and a continuous bar and rod mill were added along with many auxiliary facilities.

The plant capacity was raised to 1 million tonnes of crude steel per annum.

[20] While Sir Biren Mookerjee continued to lead with his old team, there were two prominent new faces: S.L.Bengston, head of the consulting firm ICC and S.L.Moffat, who was brought in from the US to boost steel production.

The famous strike in 1953 led to the formation of Action Committee, which later emerged as a wing of the All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC).

From March 1967 onwards the industrial relations in Burnpur and Kulti, along with other places in West Bengal, underwent dramatic changes.

Strikes and go-slow tactics were resorted to in numerous departments, paralysing work in many areas.

The newly invented intimidatory tactics of gherao was practiced against the management personnel on the flimsiest of pretexts.

[23] Sir Biren Mookerjee said, "I see before my eyes a vast industrial complex with which I have been associated for nearly 40 years, crumbling to dust, not as a result of enemy action but by the senseless spirit of destruction of our own citizens.

The bill for the take over was piloted in parliament by Mohan Kumaramangalam, then union minister of steel & mines.