The company has suffered a net loss of Rs 21.71 crore during the year, up from Rs 18.6 crore incurred during 1996-97. The company which commenced commercial production of pig iron in July 1996, 16 months behind the April 1995 schedule, expects to commence operations at its steel-making facility in July 1998. Its steel-finishing facility is expected to begin production in March 1999, behind the April 1996 schedule.

During the year the company produced 88,000 tonnes of pig iron (48,800 tonnes during July-March 1996-97 period), against the annual capacity of 2.35 lakh tonnes. The offtake of pig iron was better at 1.05 lakh tonnes (20,700 tonnes). The stock decrease taken into account is Rs 11.02 crore (+ Rs 16.94 crore).

Siscol managed to export Rs 14.98 crore of pig iron, 23 per cent of the turnover. The interest burden shot up to Rs12.44 crore (Rs 8.56 crore) and a depreciation provision of Rs 7.53 crore (Rs 5.25 crore) has been made for 1997-98. The steel project incurred an expenditure of Rs 242.25 crore up to March 31, 1998 (Rs 196.26 crore up to March 31, 1997).