The Indian Steel & Wire Products (ISWP), which recently introduced welding electrodes in the marketplace and has since been producing around 250 tonne per month (tpm), plans to reach a 500-tonne per month (tpm) output during the next financial year (2010-11) and to have electrode-making capacity in excess of 2,000 tonne per month (tpm) in the next five years.
Welding electrodes being price-sensitive items, players in the unorganized sector are said to be frequently using flux material which do not conform to national/global standards and which thus cause health problems in welders who frequently inhale the poisonous gases emanating from such cheaper varieties of electrodes.
According to ISWP general manager (IT & commercial) Uday Prakash Sharan, as the welding electrodes made by ISWP were using high quality titanium dioxide and steel, the company?s products were safer to that extent.
Sharan who said health concern of welders had been the primary force behind the company?s developing quality electrodes at an affordable price, added that while its ?Spark? brand had been introduced for industrial users, the ?Agni? brand of electrodes was targeted for the retail segment.
?We have an ambitious plan of producing more than 2,000 tonne per month (of electrodes) in the next five years with a turnover of Rs 100 crore from it as this is going to be one of our core businesses,? said Sharan.
BIFR-referred ISWP which was taken over by Tata Steel in Dec 2003 is currently seeing modernization as the wire division of the steel major is putting up a 5,000-tonne per month high-speed wire drawing plant and a GI wire mill of the same capacity at ISWP?s premises, both of which are scheduled to be commissioned in March.
ISWP which had a turnover of around Rs 76 crore during the nine-months to December 31, 2009 is expecting to close the current year around Rs 105 crore.
