Visakhapatnam: Union Minister urged to take over ALIH

Visakhapatnam: Visakhapatnam Steel Plant Employees Union, affiliated to CITU, demanded the Union government to take over France-based Air Liquid India Holding Pvt Ltd (ALIH) and hand it over to Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (RINL). Referring to the need for oxygen, the Union wrote a letter to Union Minister for Steel, Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan in this regard here on Monday.

With hard resistance from the trade unions, the then Union government in 2009 forcefully allowed the French company ALIH must use its investments to build, own and operate a plant to produce oxygen and nitrogen in Visakhapatnam Steel Plant (VSP) with a production capacity of 1,700 tons per day. As per the MOU, the company sells its oxygen and nitrogen to VSP only for a period of 15 years.

The management of ALIH has left the company idle for nine years after completion of construction.

The ALIH demanded from VSP an amount much higher than the cost of building the company. This would not have occurred if VSP was given permission to build the Air Separation Plant. All this loss has occurred because of the faulty policy of allowing a foreign company to construct Air Separation Plant-2 in VSP in 2009. After several international arbitrations, the judgment came on April 2, 2021, that the company must start its trial run from May 1. But the ALIH is not taking steps in this direction so far.

According to the plant officials, the VSP is ready to pay the value to the ALIH, as per the award of the international arbitration tribunal. The VSP has also agreed to pay Rs 85 crore in advance towards the cost of the trial run. If the plant is handed over to RINL, the VSP can produce an additional 100 tons of oxygen per day.