IRON 

 INDIAN FOUNDRIES Smelting 



tl...ited at Bombay in July 1907 with u capital of 2J lakhs of rupees. Since 

 thru (lovenmieiit. have sanctioned the construction of a broad-gauge 

 railway from Kalimati (the site selected for the works) to the ore-i 



vurbhanj State, a distance of about 45 miles. Coal lands have 

 purchased by the company in the Jherria field ; limestone quarries 

 secured near Katni ; manganese ore is being opened up in Salaghat ; 

 le-iims for the works have been accepted and progress made in clearing 

 the site for the erection of the blast furnaces which are expected to com- 

 mence operations about the end of 1910. 



Bengal. It has, however, to be admitted that so far as actual results Bengal. 

 an- concerned, the ore utilised in India is very nearly confined to that 

 worked up by the Bengal Iron and Steel Company in its works at Barakar. 

 In the Review of Mineral Production, Holland gives the ore raised 

 in Bengal during 1898 to 1903, which shows for the six years an annual 

 average output of 57,678 tons valued at 8,338, and a value per ton of 

 2'89s. Up to the present time, he observes, the Barakar Iron and 

 Steel Company has manufactured pig-iron only, of which two blast furnaces Pig-iron, 

 have turned out 35,000 tons of pig-iron a year. Since then a third blast 

 furnace has been added and an unsuccessful attempt made to manufacture 

 basic steel. The history of past adversity and present prosperity of the 

 Barakar works is the story of the failure of unskilled impersonal enterprise 

 contrasted with skilled individual energy when combined with capital 

 and commercial acumen. Their subsequent production was 65,115 tons 

 in 1904 ; 97,698 tons in 1905 ; and 69,397 tons in 1906. 



FOUNDRIES AND INDUSTRIES. Iron and Brass Foundries are not Foundries, 

 separately returned, so that they have to be dealt with conjointly. They 

 are scattered all over the country, but with the exception of the Barakar 

 Iron and Steel Company, the railway and engineering workshops and 

 foundries of Calcutta, Bombay, and certain other large towns, few are of 

 any importance. In 1903 there were 78 foundries in all India giving employ- 

 ment to 22,568 persons, and in 1904, 89 employing 24,256 persons. Three Persons 

 years previously the corresponding figures were 70 and 17,980, so that 

 there has been a considerable expansion ; but these returns take, of course, 

 no cognisance of the village blacksmith nor the workers in brass and copper. 

 In the Records of the Geological Survey of India (1906, xxxiii., pt. i., 12-3) 

 it is stated that the value of Bengal ore works out to an average of Rs. 2-4a. <*** 

 {3s.) per ton. For the rest of India, the ore being of a higher quality 

 and raised at places often distant from the railways as well as the ports, 

 a higher average prevails, say Rs. 4. The returns for 1904 show 71,608 

 tons of ore used, valued at 12,617. In the Central Provinces there were 

 441 small direct-process furnaces at work. [Cf. Moral and Mat. Prog. 

 Ind., 1905-6, 115.] 



Local Manufactures. The exports and re-exports are not of Local 

 sufficient importance to necessitate separate treatment. A feature of Indent8 * 

 great potentiality that bids fair to foster local manufacturing enterprise, 

 is the decision of the Indian Railway Board to place Indian engineering 

 firms in a position to tender publicly for a portion of the annual require- 

 ment of stock. The tenders are to be confined for the present to the 

 supply of frames and bodies only, the requisite wheels, axles, springs 

 and draw-bars to complete wagons being indented for from England 

 as heretofore. Subject to the material being satisfactory, iron and steel 

 of Indian manufacture should be used whenever possible. 



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