Automation in steel industry is need of hour: RINL CMD Atul Bhatt

Rashtriya Ispat Nigam (RINL) has said automation in the steel industry is the need of the hour. Speaking virtually during the launch of Open Challenge Progam 2.0, RINL Chairman and Managing Director Atul Bhatt said, "The automation in the steel industry is the need of the hour and the scope of growth of automation and robotics is immense. The equipment developed by the startups will give returns on investment by RINL very fast as they help in energy savings and will also help in running the process safely."

Open Challenge Progam 2.0 is the second program in the series of OCP programs that are being launched by Kalpataru-Centre of entrepreneurship (CoE). This open challenge program is for selecting startups in the field of Industry 4.0 technologies. The project, CoE (Centre of Excellence) on Industry 4.0, is being taken up jointly by the software technology park of India, the Ministry of Electronics & IT (MeitY), RINL, and Andhra Pradesh's government. This is expected to make India 'Atamanibhar' in the field of Industry 4.0 technologies, according to a statement shared with exchanges on Thursday evening.

The CoE will have an Industrial Internet of Things (IIOT) lab which is an industrial automation lab with artificial intelligence and machine learning and augmented reality and virtual reality lab. It will also have one more industrial automation lab with robotics and drone and a third Industrial automation lab with robotics and 3D printing, according to the statement.

The CoE will incubate around 175 startup companies over a period of five years. Fifty startup companies will be incubated in physical mode and 125 companies will be incubated in virtual mode. The startup companies along with industry mentors will work on the problems of RINL and other industries.