Visakha Steel Plant crisis to hit downstream industries

​Visakhapatnam: The crisis in RINL-Visakha Steel Plant will have cascading effect on the downstream industries in Vizag, which have already suffered setback during the last three years due to sluggish market.

Around 1,100 small and medium units were set up in Autonagar Industrial Estate in 1974 said to be one of the biggest in the truncated State mostly depending on the Visakhapatnam Steel Plant, BHPV (now merged with BHEL), Hindustan Shipyard and Visakhapatnam Port Trust.

Most of them being fabrication and precision engineering units initially depended on BHPV which was booming with orders and Hindustan Shipyard.

However, the momentum picked up in early 80s, when the Visakhapatnam Steel Plant came into being. “The establishment of steel plant raised the hopes small and medium industries in the region,” said N Surya Kiran, who once owned a small fabrication unit.

The public procurement policy also made it mandatory for the steel plant to place orders with local industries about 20 percent of their total requirement. “The industries in Autonagar were running well till 2013 with a turnover of Rs 1,200 crore but due to the decline in the business in the core industries like steel, orders declined weakening the small and medium industries.

Now the present crisis will lead to further decline,” said president of Visakha Autonagar Small Scale Industrialists Welfare Association, A Krishna Balaji. With Samaikhya Andhra movement and Hudhud weakening small industries, the fresh crisis in the steel plant will render unemployment to a large section of the society.

CITU leader Ayodhya Ram said 30,000 people are directly engaged within Visakhapatnam plant premises and another 45,000 work outside the plant in downstream industries.

“The crisis will have influence on these employees and their family members who together account for over 4 lakh population in the industrial sector of the city,” Ayodhya Ram said.