Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-r6qrq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T09:27:02.168Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Vertical Integration and the Indian Steel Industry

The Colliery Establishment of the Tata Iron and Steel Company, 1907—56

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

C. P. Simmons
C. P. Simmons
Affiliation:
University of Salford
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

At a very early stage in their respective careers, most of the major iron and steel plants of Europe and North America recognized the strategic importance of possessing colliery capacity in order to safeguard their requirements of coking-coal, a basic input to the blast furnace. In the Ruhr—where the tendency towards vertical integration probably reached its apotheosis—the Huttenzechen (tied mines), accounted for nearly twenty per cent of the total coal output at the turn of the century and no less than fifty per cent during the inter-war period. The precise legal standing of the integrated units naturally varied from country to country. In Britain and Germany, for example, the most favoured practice was for the iron and steel plant to establish outright ownership of the mines and to treat them merely as a department of the enterprise complex itself, whereas in the United States, the giant steel works such as Kaiser, Republic, and Bethlehem, preferred to create semi-autonomous subsidiary companies. In India, the two steel firms ofthe pre- Independence era, i.e. the Tata Iron and Steel Company (henceforth abbreviated to T.I.S.CO.) and the Indian Iron and Steel Company (I.I.S.CO.), inclined towards the former organizational model (with the single exception of T.I.S.CO.'s West Bokaro colliery which was purchased in 1947 and was wholly owned by the Company's shareholders).

Type
Articles
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 11 , Issue 1 , February 1977 , pp. 127 - 148
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1977

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Pounds, N. J. G., The Ruhr: A Study in Historical and Economic Geography (Bloomington, 1952), pp. 101–4, 124 ff., 143 ff.Google Scholar

2 Pounds, N. J. G. and Parker, W. N., Coal and Steel in Western Europe (London, 1957), pp. 304–8,Google Scholar and the Report of the Indian Coalfields' Committee—the Mahindra Report— (Delhi, 1946), p. 192).Google Scholar

3 We have ignored the Mysore Iron and Steel Works because it used charcoal for smelting (the plant was located nearly 1,000 miles away from the Jharia field) and therefore did not acquire any colliery property.

4 Mahindra Report pp. 197 ff.Google Scholar

5 I.I.S.CO., moreover, was taken over by the Government of India in 1972, while T.I.S.CO. continues to survive as the only non-public sector steel plant in the country.

6 Ranade, M. G., Essays on Indian Economics (Madras, 1898), Ch. 6, pp. 170–92. Ranade documents seventeen different attempts from the Porto Novo experiment in the 1830s down to the turn of the century.Google Scholar

7 See Sarkar, A. K., ‘History of Iron and Steel’, Calcutta Review, Vol. 168, No. 1 (07 1963), pp. 132–55.Google Scholar

8 Schwartz, Ritter Von, Report on the Financial Prospects of Iron Working in the Chanda District (Calcutta, 1882).Google Scholar

9 Elwin, V., The Story of Tata Steel (Jamshedpur, 1958), p. 26. This is now the site of the giant Bhilai Steel Works.Google Scholar

10 Mahon, R. H., A Report on the Manufacture of Iron and Steel in India (Simla, 1899).Google Scholar

11 Weald, C. M. and Perin, C. P., Report on Washing and Coking Tests with Coals from India (T.I.S.CO. private publication, Bombay, 1905).Google Scholar

12 Annual Report of the T.I.S.CO. 1905–1906. Bombay Rec. Off.Google Scholar

13 Annual Raw Material Statistics (‘Blue Books’) August 1925, Jamshedpur Rec. Off. In 1966 a more scientific estimate indicated that the Company possessed 690.7 million tons of coking-coal, or just under a quarter of the entire reserves of the Jharia field. Engineer, B. H., The Colliery Expansion Project, 1968, Jamadoba Rec. Off.Google Scholar

14 Internal memorandum dated 31 July 1937, File C-147(A), Jamshedpur Rec. Off.Google Scholar

15 As the output of pig iron had increased by nearly double this amount (630 per cent), the Company's vigilant drives for fuel economy had undoubtedly borne fruit and the ratio of coke input to pig output had been considerably reduced.

16 Letter from SirTata, D. to the Dept of Commerce and Industry, dated 17 June 1918. Procs of the Dept of Commerce and Industry, No. 54, ‘B’, July 1918, N.A.I.Google Scholar

17 Report of the Indian Tariff Board Regarding the Grant of Protection to the Steel Industry (Calcutta, 1924), I, p. 52.Google Scholar

18 See File Nos C-21 G, Yule's; C-64 I and II, Bird's; C-43 A, Kilburn's; and C-41, Anderson Wright, Jamshedpur Rec. Off.Google Scholar

19 Letter from the General Manager (Works) to the Raneegunje Coal Association, dated 12 July 1919. File No. C-14/1, Jamshedpur Rec. Off.Google Scholar

20 File Nos C-43, A, and C-14/3, Jamshedpur Rec. Off.Google Scholar

21 Ibid.

22 Reply to the Questionnaire Submitted by the Tariff Commission (Bombay, 1953), p. 23.Google Scholar

23 Answers to the Questionnaire Submitted by the Bihar Labour Enquiry Committee, 1938, Bombay Rec. Off. 1938.Google Scholar

24 Ann. Rep. I. M. A. (1932), p. 7.Google Scholar

25 Burrows Report, p. 68.Google Scholar

26 Ibid.

27 Report of the Coalfields' Committee (Calcutta, 1920), p. 19.Google Scholar

28 Burrows Report, p. 67.Google Scholar

29 Kirk, J., Investigation Report on the state of the T.I.S.CO. Collieries, dated 29 November 1927. File No. C/75–2, Jamshedpur Rec. Off.Google Scholar

30 Memorandum of Dalal, A. R. (Special Director), dated 21 September 1938, File No. C-147/A, Jamshedpur Rec. Off.Google Scholar

31 File No. C-147/A, Jamshedpur Rec. Off.Google Scholar

32 File No. C-100/1, Jamshedpur Rec. Off.Google Scholar

33 File No. C-100, Jamshedpur Rec. Off.Google Scholar

34 Ghosh, A. B., The Economics of Coal Washing in India (Calcutta, 1966), pp. 116–22.Google Scholar

35 File No. C-118/1, Jamshedpur Rec. Off.Google Scholar

36 File No. C-147/A, Jamshedpur Rec. Off.Google Scholar

37 Ann. Rep. I.M.F. (1937), p. 19.Google Scholar

38 Reply to the Questionnaire Submitted by the Tariff Commission, p. 28.Google Scholar

39 File Nos C-42, C-99 and C-122, Jamshedpur Rec. Off. Prior to 1929, depreciation and office charges were not shown separately for the collieries.Google Scholar

40 Letter from Shri Padshah, B. J. to the General Manager (Works), dated 12 August 1916. File No. C-43(2), Jamshedpur Rec. Off.Google Scholar

41 ‘Gross profits’ were defined as ‘the aggregate realization from sales less the aggregate costs of production without setting aside any sum for depreciation. Sales realization shall include all sales to T.I.S.CO. from its own mines, the price of coal to be taken as the same rate T.I.S.CO. would have to pay for similar coals in the market.’ Managing Agency Agreement dated January 1917. File No. C-43(2), Jamshedpur Rec. Off.

42 File No. C-43(2), Jamshedpur Rec. Off.Google Scholar

43 Internal memorandum dated 11 April 1927, ibid.

44 Deposition presented to the Bengal Chamber of Commerce on the arbitration between the Company and Kilburn's.ibid.

45 Letter dated 1 May 1938. File No. C-125, Jamshedpur Rec. Off.Google Scholar

46 Letter from Andrew Farquhar to the General Manager (Works), dated 16 October 1938. File No. C-124(A), Jamshedpur Rec. Off.Google Scholar

47 In fact, there were a series of strikes on the neighbouring collieries in both 1938 and 1939 which did involve two of the outside contractors,Google Scholarviz at the Katrasgarh mine of Bird's (Prasad Report, I, p. 259) and at Kustore (File No. C-125 Jamshedpur Rec. Off.).We do not, however, possess sufficient information about these strikes to attribute their cause to better labour conditions at T.I.S.CO.Google Scholar

48 Information about these facilities is contained in the following files: No. C-73 Social Services, No. C-75 Welfare Work, No. C-146 Schools, No. C-127 Health, No. C-49 Accidents and Accident Prevention, No. C-171 Pit-Head Baths, No. C-120 Scholarships Abroad and No. C-47(c) Coal Contractors, Jamshedpur Rec. Off.Google Scholar

49 R.C.L., IV, Pt 2, p. 278.Google Scholar

50 Annual Report of the T.I.S.CO. 1920–1921. Bombay Rec. Off.Google Scholar

51 Trans. of M.G.I.I. XXIV (1951), p. 141, Note by Mr Alexander Roy.Google Scholar

52 File No. C-102(A), Jamshedpur Rec. Off.Google Scholar

53 Letter addressed to the General Manager (Works), dated 3 March 1924. File No. C-75/1, Jamshedpur Rec. Off.Google Scholar

54 R.C.L., IV, Pt 2, p. 278.Google Scholar

55 Ibid.

56 Prasad Report, IV, Pt B, pp. 348 ff.Google Scholar

57 Ibid. IV, Pt A, p. 252.

58 Answers to the Questionnaire Submitted by the Bihar Labour Enquiry Committee, 1938, p. 21, Bombay Rec. Off.Google Scholar

59 File No. C-124(A), Jamshedpur Rec. Off.Google Scholar

60 File No. C-125, Jamshedpur Rec. Off.Google Scholar

61 Ibid.

62 Mukherjee, R., The Indian Working Class (Bombay, 1945), p. 115.Google Scholar

63 Railway Dept Procgs, Railway Board (Financial), No. 33–132–6–5, ‘B’, April 1935, N.A.I.Google Scholar

64 File No. C-47(c), Jamshedpur Rec. Off.Google Scholar