Trade union leaders, Visakhapatnam Steel Plant employees stage protest

Visakhapatnam: Condemning the remarks made by Union Steel Minister Ram Chandra Prasad Singh on the floor of the parliament with reference to the employees of Visakhapatnam Steel Plant, trade union leaders and employees of the VSP staged a protest here on Thursday taking a strong objection to it. Visakha Ukku Parirakshana Porata Committee (VUPPC) staged a demonstration opposite the administrative building of the RINL.

As a part of the dharna, the protesters burnt the portrait of the Steel Minister and threw chappals at it. Speaking on the occasion, trade union leaders mentioned that the VSP earned a net profit of Rs 584 crore for the year 2021-22. "Much against the baseless remarks made by the Union Minister that VSP is suffering losses not because of the lack of own captive mines but due to the inefficiency of the workers, the VSP production capacity reached 89 percent.

The report states that the RINL has produced 4.7 million tonnes of liquid steel till January 2021-22 and a turnover of steel of Rs.22,289 crore," they mentioned. Further, they said, since the VSP was denied its own captive mines, it ended up incurring an expenditure of Rs 8,500 per tonne of purchase of iron ore in the market.

"There is no truth in the statement made by the Union Minister that the Central government is not in a position to bear the debt of Rs 22,000 crore of the VSP and hence it decided to go for 100 percent strategic sale. The Union government never had borne the losses of the VSP," stated Ch Narasinga Rao, chairman of VUPPC. Even the expansion of the VSP was undertaken with its own funds and the government did not allot any funds for the same, said D Adi Narayana, chairman of VUPPC and Gandham Venkat Rao, representative of the committee.

"The expansion from 3.2 million tonnes to 7.3 million tonnes was met with mobilising loans. When the Central government can write off the loans of Adani and Ambani groups to the tune of Rs 11 lakh crore, why could not it write off the Rs 22,000 crore loan of the VSP? The plant paid Rs 50,000 crore to the state and Central governments in the form of dividends and taxes. Of which, Rs 41,000 crore has been paid to the Central government," they pointed out.