The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) conferred the coveted CII-EXIM Bank 'Business for Excellence Award' for the year 2000 to Tata Steel today at its 27th national conference and annual meet at New Delhi.

The award was received by Dr. Jamshed J Irani, managing director, Tata Steel, from union minister for parliamentary affairs and information technology Pramod Mahajan. Tata Steel is the third company to receive the coveted award after Hewlett Packard and Maruti Udyog Ltd.

Speaking on the occasion, Dr Irani said it was a great honour to receive the award on behalf of the Tata Steel family of 48,000 co-workers, whose perseverance had reaped rich dividends and enabled the company to win this award.

He said the award symbolised that Tata Steel was changing, with the exception of its corporate values, at a rapid pace on all fronts. The award, modelled on the lines of the European Foundation for Quality Management, had evaluated Tata Steel on the parameters of leadership, policy and strategy, people, partnership and resources, process, people results, society results, customer results and key performance results.

Tata Steel's performance in the last fiscal (1999-2000) had been outstanding. The company's profits at Rs 422.59 crore represented a 50 per cent increase over the previous year. It registered improvements/increase in its operations such as hot metal, crude steel and saleable steel production. The company also put up a state-of-the-art cold rolling mill at Jamshedpur, at global cost and time to fulfill the needs of its customers.

This year too, the company surpassed its previous best hot metal, crude steel and saleable steel production and improved its performance in the area of coke output, sinter making and energy, refractory and power consumption.

The company also increased its turnover at the market place and retained its position as a market leader. Tata Steel's performance is an exception among steel producers in India and the recessionary world-wide trends in the steel industry.

The award is a vindication of the efforts made by a family of 48,000 committed members of Tata Steel who have vowed to transform the company into a global player and delight its customers with its services and products.

The following is the list of awards that Tata Steel has won this year:

• JRD QV award

• Prime Minister's trophy for the best integrated steel plant

• National award for corporate governance

• IIMM for business excellence

• Qimpro award

• ISO-14001 certification.

This bears testimony to the successful charting of course towards distinction in all spheres of activity by Tata Steel.

Senior divisional manager
Corporate Communications