The Ujjain SPU will produce TMT bars in 8 mm to 25 mm diameter from billets supplied by BSP. Being built at a cost of around Rs 100 crore, the unit will have a TMT bar mill of 100,000 tonnes per annum (tpa) capacity. Other major facilities will include a pusher-type reheating furnace, mill trains, crop-cum-cobble shear, cooling bed, dividing shear, cut-to-length and bundling & tying facilities for TMT bars. The SPU will also have warehousing facility.

Speaking on the occasion, the Steel Minister said that SAIL's decision to set up SPUs was in tandem with one of the aims of the National Steel Policy of increasing per capita steel consumption in rural areas from the present 2 kgs to 4 kgs by 2019-20. He urged SAIL to ensure that each of the SPUs being set up in Madhya Pradesh would become operational by 15^th August 2009, well before their scheduled completion time of 24 months.

This will be SAIL's second SPU in Madhya Pradesh. Mr Paswan had laid the foundation stone for an SPU which will produce angles, channels, beams/joists and TMT bars, being set up with an investment of around Rs. 154 crore, in Hoshangabad district yesterday. SAIL has planned to set up a third SPU in Madhya Pradesh at Gwalior as well, the foundation stone for which is likely to be laid in the first week of August 2008. The three units being set up in Madhya Pradesh will also contribute to the development of the region by generating employment and catalysing rural-based ancillary industries. Mr Shivraj Singh Chauhan, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister, thanked Mr Paswan for SAIL's decision to set up three SPUs in his state.

SAIL has decided to set up 10 steel processing units in 6 states where it does not have any production facility to meet the market demand for tailor-made steel products and to help increase per capita steel consumption in rural areas. The SPUs will use products like hot rolled coils, billets and TMT bars produced by SAIL's main integrated steel plants to manufacture a wide variety of steel items that can be utilised by the common man.

SAIL's first SPU coming up at Betiah in Bihar at a cost of around Rs. 236 crore will have the capacity to produce 265,000 tonnes of TMT bars and pipes. Its first phase is likely to be completed by August 2008. Another SPU at Mahnar in Bihar, also being set up in two phases at a cost of Rs. 265 crore, will have the capacity to produce 1.5 lakh tonnes of black and galvanised tubes and 1 lakh tonnes of TMT bars, and will also have coil cutting and corrugation facilities.