The NMDC Ltd's upcoming 3 million tonne greenfield Nagarnar Steel Plant in Bastar, Chhattisgarh, on Monday successfully received raw material, a major step towards commencing production by July next year, the state owned iron-ore miner said.

Nagarnar Steel Plant received the first rake of imported coking coal and also commissioned its Wagon Tippler at the Raw Material Handling System (RMHS) thereby bringing the plant commissioning to its penultimate step, NMDC said in a statement.

The plant received 4106 tonnes of coal, a part of the first consignment of 80m000 tonnes of coal imported from Australia and offloaded at Visakhapatnam Port last week.

Imported coking coal and indigenous coal is blended and charged into the blast furnace along with iron ore to produce hot metal.

In all, 4 wagon tipplers, critical part of the Rs 1395 crore RMHS will be utilised to offload 12 million tonnes of incoming raw material - iron ore, coking coal, limestone - that would be required annually to produce 3 million tonnes of steel, NMDC director (technical) N K Nanda said.

The steel plant management is now following up on meeting all Safety and environmental norms.

Recently, an accident at Bhilai steel Plant of SAIL had left several people dead and many injured.

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