Visakhapatnam: BJP MP GVL Narasimha Rao sought Central government’s financial assistance forVisakhapatnam Steel plant – RINL in the Rajya Sabha in New Delhi on Tuesday.
Recalling that the Visakha Steel Plant had been demanding for preferential allocation of captive iron ore mines for decades, he said that due to the gross negligence of the previous Central State Governments in allocating these, the Visakha Steel Plant is currently suffering severe losses.
” Although the Congress was in power in Andhra Pradesh for 10 years from 2004 to 2014 and despite the fact that there were 33 Congress MPs from Andhra Pradesh at that time, no one cared about the allocation of steel plant mines to RINL. To placate the then Congress president and Raibareli MP Sonia Gandhi, Visakha Steel Plant invested in Forged Wheel Plant near Raibareli at a cost of more than Rs. 2,000 crore,” he said.
The MP also said that Rs.14,500 crore capital investment was forced onVisakha Steel Plant to increase plant capacity by taking high interest loans which caused a huge burden to the steel plant. In 2021, the current Central government had decided to disinvest, but it is a happy development that it has been stopped from being implemented in the case of Visakhapatnam steel plant.
“From 2022 the third blast furnace is also decommissioned. I seek the central government’s support to operationalize it. Salaries and pensions of steel plant employees, contract workers and executives are not being paid on time for several months. Promotions of executives have also been stopped from 2021 onwards. Many young executives from premier institutes like IIT, NIT are also not given time bound promotions,” he pointed out and urged the Centre to provide financial assistance to RINL as done by the Vajpayee government by giving Rs.1,333 crore after RINL was referred to the BIFR in 2000.
He also asked the Centre to announce the promotions of all the executives immediately.
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