Tata Steel, a part of Tata Group, has decided to augment the annual production capacity at its Jamshedpur plant to 10 million tons per annum from its existing capacity of 6.8 million tons.

Mr. B Muthuraman Tata Steel, Managing Director, said that with the opening of blast furnace ‘H’, the subsisting capacity of the company would raise to 10 million tons by the middle of 2010.

Mr. Muthuraman also announced that construction work at the company’s proposed plant at Orissa would commence shortly, whereas the other at Chattisgarh was showing signs of good progress.

Moreover, Tata Steel also plans to establish a second steel plant at Jharkhand, he said.

While expressing worry over limitations on capacity addition by the steel industry in India, he told that certain important issues should grab the attention of the national planners.

These issues were limiting addition of capacity by the steel makers, which had resulted in increased steel imports into the country.

He also said that the steel imports into India would touch 25 million tons per annum for the next few years.

The shares of the company, on Friday (May 30), closed at Rs 902.9, up Rs 6.85 on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE). The total volume of shares traded was 1,014,442.