It was established on 3 February 1959 with the help of West German industrial corporations on approximately 19,000 acres of land acquired from tribal inhabitants.

[11] To prepare Rourkela for an industrial complex, more than 30 villages were displaced and about 13,000-16,000 of their mostly Adivasi inhabitants forcibly resettled to acquire about 19,722 acres of land in 1955.

[14] However, the compensations are said to have been inadequate, some displaced persons received nothing at all; the jobs promised were given years later, some were never given, and many had to survive on meager incomes from irregular casual labour.

The Germans realized that the task of building a steel plant in an underdeveloped area turned out to be more difficult than anticipated, due to insufficient logistics and slow transportation.

[12] Between 1957 and 1958, VÖEST, an Austrian company joined hands with Krupp for the construction of RSP, which became the first Linz-Donawitz (LD) steel plant to be located outside Austria.

Jaipal Singh Munda came to Laikera village and conducted a meeting with the Adivasis, explaining them that the Dam will help develop RSP and the country; and that it will lead to an improvement in their quality of life.

[5] The Mandira dam was set up on about 11,923 acres of land acquired from 31 tribal villages, which were then submerged under water, and about 8,785 of their inhabitants were resettled.

On 3 February 1959, then president Rajendra Prasad inaugurated RSP's first blast furnace named 'Parvati' when the company was known as Hindustan Steel Limited (HSL).

The agreement was signed in Bonn, Germany by the Secretary of the Ministry of Production, on behalf of the Government of India, and two German firms of international repute, namely Krupp and Demag.

[citation needed] Recently, 12,000-crore rupees modernisation and expansion project was dedicated to the Nation by Prime minister Narendra Modi on 1 April 2015.

The plant has also, for the first time in India, had adopted external desulphurisation of hot metal by calcium carbide injection process.

NSPCL,[21] a joint venture company of NTPC Limited and SAIL, set up a captive power plant of 120 MW capacity to be self-sufficient.

Following the modernization RSP became the first SAIL plant to have adopted continuous casting route for all its hot metal production.

It is also the first Indian steel plant to have adopted external desulfurisation of hot metal by the calcium carbide injection process.

Its HR coils find application in manufacturing LPG cylinders, automobiles, railway wagon chassis and other high-strength type steels.

It produces armoured plate for the T-90 and Arjun (tank), and the BMP-2 infantry combat vehicle, which are built at Avadi and Medak respectively by the Ordnance Factory Board.