Durgapur Chemicals Ltd. (DCL) was incorporated on 31st
July 1963 as a public sector company wholly owned by
the Government of West Bengal as part of an initiative
to develop Durgapur as an industrial hub of West Bengal.
DCL started commercial production of Phenol, phthalic
anhydride, Monochloro Benzene, Pentachloro Phenol, Caustic
Soda, Chlorine and Hydrochloric Acid in the year 1968.
The company was planned as a forward integration for another
GoWB owned company, Durgapur Projects Limited (DPL), set
up primarily to supply power, water, coke and coke oven
gas to industrial units in the Durgapur area. It was envisaged
that the company would utilize the benzene and naphthalene
produced as by-products of DPL’s coke oven batteries
to feed as raw material to our phenol and phthalic anhydride
respectively.
The
Phenol Plant due to technical problem in the high pressure
compressors was stopped in the year 1983. The Phathalic
anhydride plant also became technologically obsolescent
over the time as xylene replaced naphthalene as feed for
production through the development of process technology.
The naphthalene based operations of the phathalic anhydride
plant were discontinued in 1989. The Company continued
its operation only with the production of Caustic Soda
Plant, Monochloro Benzene, Di-chloro Benzene, Sodium Pentachloro
Phenate.
DCL has its own township with more than 400 residential
accommodations to all categories of employees spread in
the area of 50 acres land & Factory area of 70 acres.
The company set up value added product Stable Bleaching
Powder (SBP) of 9000 MT / Annum capacity and Hydrogen Bottling
plant in the year 1999.
In the year 2001, Govt. set up a high level committee
on Public Sector restructuring to study the problems and
prospects of each of the enterprises separately & suggest
action plans for the revival of those which are potentially
viable taking into account their need for business, administrative
and financial restructuring. It has also been decided that
Govt. will retain the ownership of enterprises that are
potential viable after giving effect to manpower and financial
restructuring measures.
Accordingly, Govt. appointed PriceWaterHouseCoopers, a
renowned Global Consultant in December 2002 for the Business
Optimization Study of the enterprises. Govt. implemented
Administrative and Financial Restructuring in February,
2004. Accordingly an 100 TPD Caustic Soda Plant,based on
environment friendly Ion-Exchange Membrane cell Technology,has
started commercial production from
February 2009.
