Tata Steel has been declared the Best Integrated Steel Plant in India for the year 1999-2000. Asia's first and India's largest integrated steel plant in the private sector, Tata Steel has been conferred this award for the third time and twice in consecutive years, since its institution. Along with the trophy, Tata Steel will get a cash award of Rs one crore.

The trophy was instituted in 1992-93 on the suggestion of the then Hon'ble Prime Minister, Mr Narasimha Rao. The primary objective of the scheme is to generate a sense of competition among the steel plants in the country so that they continuously compare themselves among the best and try to improve.

The selection of the best integrated steel plant is done on a predetermined scheme and by a panel of judges comprising technologists, economists, consumers of steel and workers' representative. Tata Steel scored in the band of 60 to 70 percent, which was the highest among the steel plants.

Tata Steel was recommended for this trophy after assessing the performance of integrated steel plants in the country. This recommendation was made by a panel of judges after an on-site assessment and evaluation of various performance parameters, including financial performance, production, environment management, marketing initiatives, etc. In a significant departure from the past, the evaluation also involved the submission of a detailed application on various aspects of business excellence, viz. leadership, human resource focus, customer focus, partnership and resources. The format used here was similar to the CII-EXIM model for Business Excellence. This was followed by one more site visit which comprised a CII team to study the deployment of the application. During the period under review, Tata Steel posted the most emphatic results by bettering its financial performance and making significant improvements in all areas of operations, such as production of hot metal and crude steel, quality assurance and customer satisfaction. The Prime Minister's Trophy for he Best Integrated Steel Plant was earlier conferred on Tata Steel for the years 1994-95 and 1998-99. More recently, Tata Steel has been declared by World Steel Dynamics as India's only "world class" steelmaker.