India's Tata Steel has invested 270 billion rupees ($3.23 billion) to expand crude steel capacity at its facility in the eastern Indian state of Odisha, the company said on Friday. ($1 = 83.5200 Indian rupees) (This story has been corrected to fix an error in the headline and paragraph 1,

Tata announced on Friday, September 20 that the company had successfully commissioned India’s largest blast furnace at Kalinganagar in Odisha.

The company commenced the Rs 27,000-crore second phase of expansion of its Kalinganagar project in Odisha in November 2018.

With the Phase II expansion, Odisha has emerged as the largest investment destination in India for Tata Steel, with a total cumulated investment of over Rs 100,000 crore in the last 10 years.

Tata Steel has commissioned India's largest blast furnace at its Kalinganagar plant, increasing its production capacity to 8 million tonnes per annum. The Rs 27,000 crore expansion project will be completed by December 2024.

The new blast furnace, with a volume of 5,870 m3, is equipped with state-of-the-art features for long campaign life and an eco-friendly design to optimise the steelmaking process. The blast furnace will also have a zero-process water discharge plan with rainwater harvesting.