03-09-2014, 11:05 AM
TATA CHEMICALS
INTRODUCTION
I have completed my project report work in one of the unit of TATA group of Industries i.e. “TATA CHEMICALS LTD”. It is one of the biggest & the most competitive chemicals making company in Gujarat. This was started by TATA group and today this TATA group has multinational presence.
TATA chemicals Ltd. a flagship company of TATA group was setup in 1939. TCL plant is situated at Mithapur in Jamnagar District.
TCL was established in 1939. It also owns a large size of land on lease as a part of township in Mithapur. The main products of this company are Soda Ash, Sodium Bicarbonate, Caustic Soda, Fertilizers, Salt, Bromine, Gypsum, and Cement.
This chemical industry has been recognized as an export house by the government of India, the company has been certified for ISO 9001:2000 and also ISO 14001.
This industry is now one of the leading players in Indian and foreign chemical industries manufacturing different varieties of chemicals along with cement & it has emerged as India’s largest exporters in the field of chemicals.
TATA Chemicals Ltd. is a classical example of how the group caters t the specific needs of the economic environments in this case providing India with an excellent blue print of how a sick plant can be rapidly turned around, providing high quality raw materials for building up India’s industrial infrastructure & bringing in valuable foreign exchange, which is the country’s No. 1 priority today. Plans are now under was to double the plants capacity & to setup bulk transportation
Project for transportation for transporting cement by sea along with western coast of India.
History & Development of the Unit
TATA Chemicals Ltd. is the largest chemical Industry. It was established in 1939 at Mithapur. History behind setting up this company is sea that yields its treasures to Tata chemicals to extract Gypsum, Salt Bromine, and Potash Magnesium Salt which are then upgraded into numerous basic chemicals which are useful as a raw material for manufacturing of glass, ceramics, textiles, etc.
The search for a plant had begun before Tata’s came on scene. A chemical engineer who has studied at Manchester University named as Mr. Kapilram Vakil (promoter) had a dream to raise its wealth of marine minerals of which salt was only the beginning. His lifetime ambition was to establish a chemical complex based on seawater and lime stone available in abundance in Saurashtra.
After a survey of the western coast it was finally decided by Mr. Kapilram Vakil that on a point of seven miles from Okha, the western most tip where the Arabian Sea meets to the Rann of Kutch like many pointer he ran into trouble. The maharaja of Baroda Mr. Sayaji Rao in whose territory Mithapur was wrote to Tata’s suggesting that they might like to assist with his national project instead of the best astrological forecast Mr. Kapilram Vakil could elect that the starting year of TCL, were disastrous then an International expert advised Mr. JRD Tata replied that when they go to that place they arouse hopes in people.
The rewarding business was for production of soda Ash of high quality. The formulae and process were well and secret of about six companies in the world. TCL has cracked the code. It was negotiating to a German firm to raise its capacity from 200 to 800 tones of soda Ash per day. At that time a chemical engineer named Mr. Darbari Seth had came back from America to visit German Firm. He was not impressed by what he saw; he told that they could aim not at 800 but at 400 tones, which was optimum capacity. Out of the 16 of management board only JRD. Tata agreed. Then Darbari Seth was asked to take over the design Fabrication and installation and to make new equipments and machinery to renovate the chemical complex of Mithapur.
Mr. Darbari Seth and his team had to design and fabricate some plants to make Soda Ash, expect each one and ensure that all of them worked right together. After the plant was ready the team was asked to take on the operations and demonstrate whether they could produce 400 tones per day. They worked with the missionary zeal and at the end of the first fortnight the plant touched a production capacity of 545 tones per day.
In 1962, the rain failed where the average rainfall was 18 inches only. At that time Mithapur was fed up by two lakes, company did not wait till the end of October. It arranged for the suitable treatment, seawater to replace fresh water in plant operation and revised the necessary method including recycling. For 3 successive years the condition remained same but the production continued to rise and Mithapur expanded to produce 1000 tones of soda Ash per day and now its production is 1500 tones per day.