At the age of 84 years, a retired Assistant Superintendent Kurian Thomas visited Bhilai Steel Plant after a long time span of 41 years. Accompanied by two former colleagues at Steel Melting Shop(SMS) 1, S N Banga and H P Patel and his son Ravin T Kurian, who pursued his academics till Class 9 from BSP SSS X, Kurian spoke enthusiastically about getting the opportunity to visit the shop, where he began his career.

 

 

 

 

While reminiscing his olden days Kurian asserted, “It was a great emotional moment for me when I visited Steel Melting Shop No. 1, where I had spent 21 years of my working life in Bhilai, after a lapse of 41 years. It was not the SMS of my time, which I saw now. I joined BSP as a graduate apprentice in 1958 and after a stay of 9 months at the Kirov steel plant in Ukraine. Later, I returned to join in the SMS Maintenance Department at BSP in 1959. It was period when, construction of units starting with Coke ovens to rolling mills and other allied units was going on at full swing and it was a real adventure to be a part of the Russian and Indian joint venture. By the end of 1978, I left Bhilai on transfer to MECON on my request due to some unavoidable personal issues. The first thing that struck me was the cleanliness of the shop, the safe movement of men and materials and having potted plants and the free space everywhere, which are the results of a well-planned strategies of the recent years”.

 

Kurian and his associates thanked Arun Singh, Vijith Damodaran and other officials and employees from SMS Unit for taking time to illustrate these old hands around. They also met Rajeev Sehgal, GM of SMS-2 at his office during the visit.