Andhra Pradesh High Court issues notice to centre over privatisation of Vizag steel plant

The Andhra Pradesh High Court has issued notices to the Centre over the petition against privatisation petition of Visakhapatnam Steel Plant. The court on Thursday heard a petition filed by former CBI JD Laxminarayana challenging the privatisation of the steel industry and issued notices to the centre to file counterclaims. The AP government told the court that it had asked the Center to reconsider the privatisation decision. The court adjourned the next hearing for four weeks.

Before filing the petition in the court, Lakshminarayana wrote a letter to Prime Minister Modi on the privatisation of the Visakhapatnam steel plant. In a letter to Prime Minister Modi, Lakshminarayana said that the Visakhapatnam steel plant was very special for AP people. With modern machine tools, the Visakhapatnam steel industry is running to international standards. The industry has generated Rs 43,700 crore in tax revenue for the government.

Apart from selling the steel plant, Lakshmi Narayana suggested several alternatives to Prime Minister Modi. He said the merger of Visakhapatnam Steel Plant (VSP) with NMDC will be an alternative and merging VSP-NMDC into SAIL to form a mega steel giant will yield results. It will merge industries such as KIOCL, which has iron ore mines. He said the setting up of a megasteel plant would reduce the cost of raw materials and production.

As another alternative, Lakshminarayana demanded that 16,872 acres of land for the steel plant in the name of the President be transferred to the plant. As a result, financial institutions are increasingly offering low-interest loans. He said the 2830 acres set aside for expansion could be used by the Center for industrial development. He said Rs 5,000 crore was urgently needed for the steel plant to survive.