Mr AK Antony defence minister felicitated Defence PSU Mishra Dhatu Nigam Limited today on the company being conferred with the Mini Ratna Category-1 status. The status was conferred by the Department of Public Enterprises recently.

Mr M Narayan Rao CMD of MIDHANI and other top company officials hoped that the company would strive to attain the Navratna status within the targeted 3 years.

Mr R Bandopadhyay secretary DPE said that the status would enable the company to make investments in projects up to INR 500 crore and grant greater autonomy to the management in decision making.

The Hyderabad based company has done particularly well in the last 3 years. MIDHANI received the award for Quality Non Ferrous category for the year 2006-07 and last year Mr Pallabh Sarkar additional GM bagged the Metallurgist of the year title. MIDHANI raised its turnover to over INR 255 crore for the financial year ending March 2008, while the profit before tax crossed INR 50 crore.

However, MIDHANI plans to cross INR 300 crore turnover in the current financial year. It has on hand investments of INR 200 crore, both from internal and external sources for augmenting facilities to support strategic sectors in defence, space, nuclear and power generation.