IISCO Plant
Earlier a small village, Kulti has grown around the IISCO plant for more than a century. The plant has many historical achievements to its credit:
India’s first blast furnace was built way back in 1870, when even in the industrially developed countries there were few blast furnaces. That open top blast furnace used coal instead of charcoal for the first time, thereby introducing modern metallurgy to India. The furnace was in operation from 1875 till the fifties when it was dismantled, as the plant at Burnpur was expanded(Now the kulti plant is closed since 2003).In 2009 it was supposed to be reopened however still its on pending status.
Steel was made for the first time in India in 1904, in open hearth furnaces. The furnace lost out to the cheap steel dumped into the country from England. Steel making withered away and Kulti remained an iron making plant with numerous foundries producing a wide range of intricate castings. Large castings and large diameter cast iron pipes produced at Kulti for more than century are still being used at many places throughout the country. Technological obsolescence and vast changes in the process of steel making forced the closure of the foundries.
Spun pipes were produced for the first time in India by the centrifugal casting process in 1945. Even when other plants came up, Kulti continued to have a national market share of 50-70%. While technological obsolescence ate away its roots, unfair market practices finally forced it to down its shutters. In 2003, the plant was closed down with voluntary retirement to most of the workers.
In 2010 the Public Sector Undertaking of Ministry of Railways namely RITES Limited signed a joint venture agreement with the Public Sector Undertaking of Ministry of Steel
