Union Minister of State for Steel Bhupathiraju Srinivasa Varma said that Union Minister of State for Steel HD Kumaraswamy will visit the Visakhapatnam steel plant on Thursday after the central government announced financial assistance to Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (RINL).
He said that the package was possible due to the determination of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and CM Chandrababu Naidu. He said that the package was brought after discussing with the steel plant workers and convincing the central authorities. He commented that just as the package was brought to the plant through collective effort, there is a need to work collectively and bring the plant into profit.
On this occasion, he appealed to the steel plant workers to work in line with PM Modi’s goal of increasing steel production. He reminded that the Prime Minister has set a target of increasing steel production in the country to 300 million tonnes by 2030.
He said that he and Kumaraswamy have been thinking about paying the pending wage arrears for the last three months and working for the benefit of the steel plant workers. However, he advised the workers not to think that the steel plant will be privatized.
He deplored that it is irresponsible to first ask for a package and then make comments saying that the package is a fraud. He clarified to the people not to believe anyone who says that the steel plant is being privatized. However, he said that the steel plant has an arrears of Rs. 35,000 crores, of which Rs. 18,000 thousand crores are due to banks and Rs. 17,000 crores are due to those who supplied the material.
He said that the steel plant has to be put into operation with a cost of Rs 11,440 crore and the work to cover the losses has to be started. For that, he believed that the plant had to be gutted first. He said that the Center’s idea is to have three blast furnaces working by August this year.
He described the merger of the steel plant with SAIL as a difficult issue and the SAIL officials have already made it clear that they will consider the merger of this company after coming out of the losses. He reminded that while the government has 65 percent stake in SAIL, the remaining 35 percent is public. However, he made it clear that the government is not against the merger of the steel plant with SAIL.