New Members
The following have been admitted to membership of IRMA in the last twelve months - a) Bilaspur Ceramics Pvt. Ltd. b) Steelage Refractories Pvt. Ltd.

National Steel Policy: Action Programme
The Ministry of Steel has drawn up a road map for the development of the refractory industry as a part and parcel of the overall development of the steel industry under the National Steel Policy. To attain its objectives, an Apex Committee at the policy making level and Plant Level Committee Technical Groups at plant level have been formed at the behest of Ministry of Steel. The Apex Committee will consist of the representatives of IRMA, steel industry and Ministry of Steel and Technical Working Groups will be formed at the level of individual steel plants with technical experts from both the refractories and the steel industries. The Technical Groups would deal with issues concerning improvement in refractories performance in the steel plants while the Apex Committee would oversee the work of the plant level working groups, and draw plans for future developments.
The Chairman, Dr. A.K. Chattopadhyay would represent IRMA in the Apex Committee, and a panel of technical representatives from member companies would serve on the respective Technical Groups at the respective plant level.

Carbon Trading
Carbon Trading is a mechanism under Kyoto Protocol that allows the saving in green house gas emission to be traded with other industries against a negotiated consideration. Presentations have been made to members by certain agencies dealing with the mechanism for such trading. Efforts have been initiated to develop a Carbon Trading Scheme for the refractories industry with the help of these agencies working in this field.

R&D
The project proposal for a research project for the development of High Alumina aggregates using lower grades of Indian Bauxite sources has been approved by the Ministry of Steel in the Government of India. The project is to be taken up by the Central Glass & Ceramic Research Institute and is being co-sponsored by two member companies.

Senior Experts Panel
With a view to refreshing and reorienting technical knowledge of middle level professionals in the industry, the Association is in the process of constituting a panel of senior technical experts. Information about the special interests and experience of several experts has been sought and are in the process of being compiled before circulation to member companies.

Reference Prices
The Association has taken up the task of updating the indicative or reference prices of commonly used category of refractories, for the information and benefit of member companies and users. It is also proposed progressively to extend this exercise to cover shapes and hollow wares as well as some speciality products.

National Steel Policy - Joint Technical Working Groups
Following the finalisation of the National Steel Policy to achieve 60 million tonnes of crude steel by 2010-11, the Apex Committee for Refractories under the Ministry of Steel constituted a number of plant level joint Technical Working Groups with representatives of the steel plant concerned and the IRMA. The meetings of the Working Groups held so far at Bokaro Steel, Durgapur Steel and Rourkela Steel Plants were found to be informative and useful.

Development of Small-scale Refractory Units
Over the last one year or so, the IRMA had taken up with the Office of the Development Commissioner (Small Scale Industries) in the Ministry of Small Scale Industries, the need for technological up-gradation of the small scale refractories units. The need for providing credit linked capital assistance for this purpose was highlighted. It may be reported that the Ministry has now approved the Credit Linked Capital Assistance Scheme for the small scale refractories units and has also deputed an officer specially to oversee the technological up-gradation of these units. Several proposals for this purpose are under consideration and would be taken up with the Ministry.

Use of the IRMA Website Bulletin Board
It is now proposed to offer members of the Association as well as non-members on payment of the necessary charges avail the IRMA web-site bulletin board to advertise about plant and machineries available, raw materials and inputs, requirement of technical personnel and so on.

New IRMA e-mail address
The Association has now taken a new e-mail address, which is indrefractory@yahoo.co.in. This is expected to help in storing more incoming and sent messages as also to receive and send larger attachment files. In course of time group e-mailing would also be introduced.