Everyone thought that the privatization of the Visakha Steel plant was over with the Center’s financial package. Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu and Deputy Chief Minister Pawan Kalyan have assured about the future of the plan during the election campaign and promise they will not allow its privatization.
However, the steel plant management has pushed a severe challenge to the coalition partners with recent tenders notification to privatize several departments. With this, tension has started among the workers as to what will actually happen? They are expressing concern that efforts are being made to hand over key departments to private companies.
A new problem has come to the fore with the issuance of the latest notification by the Visakhapatnam Steel Management. There is a stir that steps are being taken towards the complete privatization of the Steel Plant. While the management is making announcements that it will save the factory, on the other hand, it is slowly taking steps to privatize the departments in phases.
As part of this, the steel management has issued a notification to privatize 34 key departments in the factory, which is becoming a sensation. The workers are expressing anger over this matter. While there is a movement against privatization on one side, the management is taking planned steps to privatize each department in the plant. While notifications have been issued successively to privatize some departments, the latest announcement has been made to privatize 34 departments at once.
On the other hand, the management, which says that it will bring the plant back to its former glory, is worried that the labor unions are not aware of what is actually happening in the plant after issuing notifications to privatize all departments. Everyone thought that the privatization of the plant had stopped after the announcement of the Rs 11,000 crore economic package by the Center.
The leaders of the alliance, including the Union Ministers, have assured the future of the plant. They have suggested that the workers should work harder and increase production with the relief given by the Center. However, the workers are now finding it difficult to issue tenders to hand over key departments to private individuals.
With this, they have started protests at the plant. The workers are expressing concern as the tenders issued include the Captive Power Plant, Waste Heat Recovery Thermal Power Plant, Captive Power Plant-2, Wire Rod Mill, and Blast Furnace-1, 2, and 3 sections.