Workshop on 'Steel in Construction'
January 12, 2007

'Steel in construction', a one-day workshop which was jointly organised by Tata Steel and INSDAG, has commenced today at Hotel Taj Bengal in Kolkata.

The keynote address was given by Dr T Mukherjee, DMD Tata Steel. Dr Mukherjee stressed a lot on the importance of the millennium goals of our nation, wherein we had given utmost importance to urbanisation. With urbanization, it is natural that the use and importance of steel will go up to a great extent. This is the area where India is presently lacking, and it has to step up and follow the rest of the world.

The guest of honour was eminent architect, Ar Dulal Mukherjee. The architect gave his views on the low usage of steel in our country even though urbanisation is greatly on the rise. He also spoke in detail about the interesting and innovative uses of steel. The welcome address was given by Director General INSDAG, Dr R.K.P Singh. Dr Singh, spoke in great detail about the various initiatives that Tata Steel has taken in contributing to various sectors of the economy,
especially construction. He also spoke about the various acquisitions that Tata Steel has made, like Nat Steel and Millennium steel which has made it into a more formidable player in the world scenario.

The workshop involved architects, consultants, contractors, builders, academicians, government
bodies, manufacturers and distributors. It was a forum for interaction of all stakeholders in the field of construction. The scope of this workshop was to highlight primarily the benefits of "steel intensive construction" on various projects, which is now the best practice adopted across the
world due to its faster speed, better durability, economy and environment friendliness.

Steel is a major driver of growth of the country's economy. In order to keep pace with the rapid advancement of modern era professionals and technologists all over the country have been designing cost-effective steel structures. In view of these, the workshop on "Steel in construction" was aimed to develop better understanding among the steel suppliers and users regarding latest development involving innovative application of construction techniques, use of advanced development in materials and to provide common platform for the professionals to acquire information on the latest practices.

The main aim of the workshop was to bring together a diverse cross section of stakeholders of steel supply chain and helping showcase the steel intensive construction practices in India and Abroad. There were more than 100 delegates who attended the workshop
.
Eight more workshops have been planned across the country out of which workshops have already taken place at Chennai, Banglore, New Delhi, Mumbai and Hyderabad.