Hyderabad: BRS working president and industries minister K.T. Rama Rao demanded that Prime Minister Narendra Modi cancel the Bailadila mining contract that was awarded to the Adani Group for construction of a steel plant in Mundra, Gujarat, and said that the ore be allocated to the Telugu states so that the loss-making Visakhapatnam Steel Plant (VSP) in AP could be strengthened and the proposed Bayyaram steel plant in Telangana could be set up.
Speaking to the media at Telangana Bhavan on Tuesday, Rama Rao stated that the Telangana government would arrive at a final decision on bidding for the VSP after a team of government officials visiting the plant to explore the viability of the move submits a report in the two to three days.
The minister accused the BJP-led government at the Centre of attempting to privatise the VSP and denying Telangana the Bayyaram steel plant. He claiming that the allocation of Bailadila iron ore to the Adani group was a "big conspiracy," saying, "the Modi government is trying to kill two birds with one stone with this move."
Rama Rao said that nearly 1.34 billion tonnes of high-quality iron ore worth roughly Rs 6 lakh crore was available at the Bailadila mines in Chhattisgarh, and if allocated to the Telugu states, it would benefit the VSP and the plan for the Bayyaram steel plant.
"VSP is about 600 km from Bailadila, hile Bayyaram is nearly 160 km away. The Modi government claims that transporting iron ore from Bailadila to Bayyaram and the VSP was technically not feasible. If that's the case, how will iron ore be transported to Adani group's plan in Mundra, Gujarat, which is 1,800 km away,” he wondered.
Rama Rao claimed that the Modi government was purposely driving the VSP into losses by not allocating iron ore to it, as well as denying the Bayyaram steel plant to Telangana as promised in the AP Reorganisation Act of 2014.
Recalling that, in accordance with the AP Reorganisation Act of 2014, the Centre had promised to set up two steel plants, one in AP's Kadapa and the other in Telangana's Bayyaram, Rama Rao stated, "Since 2014, the state government has been asking about Bayyaram, but the Modi government has not responded. The Centre is spreading falsehood that Bayyaram's iron was of poor quality. When I met JSW Steel chairman Sajjan Jindal, he told me that they had set up steel plants using iron ore which was of lower quality than Bayyaram."
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