Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) is moving special quality Wide Parallel Beam (WPB-160) electric poles on topmost priority basis to Cyclone Fani affected areas in Odisha. Responding to the immediate requirement of the State Government, Ministry of Steel directed SAIL to ensure all out efforts to meet the requirements. SAIL quickly moved the first consignment of 500 nos. of electric poles to the disaster affected areas and it reached the sites on 5th May at 3 am. Another 5000 poles have already moved for reaching directly to the affected areas. SAIL has assured to move a total of 15,000 such poles in a time bound manner.
SAIL decided to suspend the regular production from its new Medium Structural Mill at Durgapur Steel Plant to make dedicated production of WPB 160 for this purpose only. Since restoration of electricity is a priority in such a calamity, SAIL is mobilizing all resources from various locations of the Country to move the electric poles on an urgent basis. It is worthwhile to mention here that under the direction of Ministry of Steel, SAIL Chairman constituted a centralized control room at Company’s headquarters in New Delhi to monitor the evolving situation due to Fani and to respond to the emerging requirements on a 24 x7 basis. This effort is SAIL’s commitment to leverage all resources in responding to national priorities. SAIL employees stationed at Bhubaneswar are working tirelessly against all odds to ensure quick delivery of materials for restoring normalcy at the earliest.