Two conveyor belts snap at VSP, disrupting production

Visakhapatnam: Ata time when production at Visakhapatnam Steel Plant is gradually improving, two con-veyor belts 1 and 2 at the sinter plant snapped at the plant, causing disruption to production. The incident happened at around 2 pm on Friday when the employees’ shift was changing for the day. The conveyor belts are used to shift sinters at the plant.

The incident happened when a part of the structure supporting the input material feeding conveyors to the sinter machine gave away. It impacted the feed of the sinter mix getting shifted to the sinter plant. Fortunately, no one was injured and there was no casualty as the shift was about to change.

Meanwhile, the plant management took up restoration work on a war footing. The man-agement further mentioned that the work will be accelerated and production will be re-sumed at the earliest.

However, according to trade union leaders, negligence in maintenance of the plant led to the incident. They further pointed out that ever since the privatisation move of the VSP was announced by the Centre, maintenance of the plant took a back seat. They alleged that not a single rupee on maintenance was spent by the management. “In case of any unforeseen in-cident, the plant has to bear the responsibility,” CITU secretary V Prasad demanded. A section of VSP employees mentioned that it would take a few days to restore normalcy at the plant. Till then, the production at the blast furnace will be halted.