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Vizag steel plant workers rise in protest as Centre firm on privatisation
Chief minister Jagan Mohan Reddy shot off a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and has sought an appointment with him at the earliest.
Massive protests erupted again in Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (RINL) in Visakhapatnam, better known as Visakhapatnam Steel Plant (VSP), on Tuesday following a statement by Union finance minister Nirmala Sitaraman in the Lok Sabha yesterday that the Centre would go ahead with the privatisation of steel plant.
Chief minister Jagan Mohan Reddy shot off a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and has sought an appointment with him at the earliest, so that he could explain the situation on ground and discuss the alternatives to revive the RINL from losses, instead of privatising it.
The CM also offered to bring an all-party delegation and also that of various trade union representatives to Delhi to discuss the issue with the Centre.
Following a call given by the Joint Action Committee of trade unions of the steel plant, thousands of workers belonging to the steel plant took to streets on Monday night and blocked the traffic on the Visakhapatnam-Kolkata national highway (NH-16) till midnight, raising slogans against the Centre for taking a unilateral decision to privatise the steel plant.
Later, the workers squatted near the steel plant gate at Kurmannapalem all through night. On Tuesday morning, the protesters laid siege to the administrative block of the RINL and refused to allow senior officials from entering the premises.
They gheraoed director (finance) of RINL Varanasi Venkata Venugopal Rao and held him captive for nearly six hours, refusing to allow him into the office. They freed him only at around 3 pm after the intervention of the police and the trade union leaders who held talks with the top management, which assured to take up their demands with the Centre.
“We shall intensify our agitation. There is no question of allowing the steel plant to be sold out to the private parties at a throwaway price. It is a question of do-or-die battle for the workers,” said J Ayodhya Ramu, president of Centre for Indian Trade Unions (CITU), the recognised union of the RINL.
On Monday, the Union finance minister, replying to questions raised by Visakhapatnam MP M V V Satyanarayana and Araku MP Goddeti Madhavi, asserted that the Centre would go in for 100 per cent disinvestment of Government of India’s shares in Visakhapatnam Steel Plant (VSP). The Centre would also withdraw RINL’s stakes in other joint ventures through strategic disinvestment.
“While deciding conditions for strategic sale of RINL, concerns of employees and other stakeholders will be suitably addressed through share purchase agreement,’’ she said.
Sitaraman also said the Andhra Pradesh government did not have any equity in the RINL, but the Centre was consulting the state government in specific matters as and when needed and would solicit its support in the matters that required its intervention.
Stating that the Visakhapatnam Steel Plant was linked to the sentiments of the people of Andhra Pradesh, the chief minister recalled that in his previous letter to the Prime Minister on February 6, he had made a few suggestions to revive the plant.
He said the steel plant would definitely turn a profitable venture given some support from the government of India instead of taking the disinvestment route by implementing some turnaround measures such as allotting captive iron ore mines to bring down the input costs, swapping high-cost debt with low-cost debt, converting debt into equity through equity conversion and monetization of vacant land.
