Steel rails from this plant were also used in the British war effort in Mesopotamia, during World War I. By then, his son Dorabji Tata had succeeded Jamsetji Tata as the chairman.

Production commenced in 1912, eight years after his demise. The plant did not produce steel during Jamsetji Tata’s lifetime. Eventually, his team located the required iron ore reserves in the jungles near the village of Sakchi in Eastern India, and, with the best available technology and expertise of the times, the steel plant was created there. The first round of exploration was abandoned because the iron ore and coal required was not available in that area. With the help of an American expert, he undertook a scientific survey of the project in densely forested areas where raw material was likely to be available. So he forged ahead, choosing to ignore the doomsayers and the cynics. Jamsetji Tata, like all great pioneers, was a determined man, with immense faith in the enterprise he had embarked When the then British chief commissioner of the Indian Railways, Sir Frederick Upcott, heard about this venture a few years later, he famously said: ‘Do you mean to say that the Tatas propose to make steel rails to British specifications? Why, I will undertake to eat every pound of steel rail they succeed in making.’ There, he was warned that exploring steel manufacturing in India would cost a fortune and there was no guarantee that the endeavour would succeed. He studied the industry thoroughly, visited locations in India which had iron ore deposits, and eventually went to Pittsburgh, the heart of the steel industry in the US, to meet the world’s best metallurgical experts.

Way back in the 1880s, Jamsetji Tata developed a belief that steel would be essential for the nation’s development. Lala has beautifully narrated the story in his excellent book The Creation of Wealth. One legendary story that has constantly inspired me is the tale of how the founder and first chairman, Jamsetji Tata, sought to establish India’s first integrated steel plant in Jamshedpur. Here is an excerpt from the foreword of the book, titled Men of Steel, Heart of Gold. There are tales of outstanding successes, crushing failures and extraordinary challenges that faced the Tata Group. Tata, Jamsetji Tata, Xerxes Desai, Sumant Moolgaokar, F.C. The anthology features snippets from the lives of various business leaders of the company: Ratan Tata, J.R.D. The Tata Saga is a collection of handpicked stories published on India’s most iconic business group.

Heart of steel meaning