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The Hindu
18 hours ago
- Business
- The Hindu
Visakhapatnam Steel Plant invites bids from private agencies to maintain its two core units
For the first time, the country's first shore-based integrated steel plant Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited -Visakhapatnam Steel Plant (RINL-VSP) has decided to appoint private agencies to handle the maintenance of two core and major units, the Sinter plant and the Raw Material Handling Plant (RMHP), according to the latest notification of expression of interest (EoI) issued by the RINL. The name of the works 'Comprehensive Technical Management & Maintenance of Sinter Plant-1,' and 'Technological Upkeep of Wagon Tipplers, Total Mechanical Maintenance with Housekeeping of RMHP Tipplers and Stacking Stream.' Interested bidders should respond to the steel plant offer by July 10 (for RMHP) and July 11 (for sinter plant) and the bids will be opened the next day. The process will take at least three to four months to complete. Currently, around 2,000 personnel, 700 odd regular employees and contract workers, are operating these two units. In future, the maintenance including the employees and their salaries, will be completely handled by contract agencies. According to sources inside the steel plant, the plant management has taken this bold step in view of the targets set by the government, the inability to achieve the expected output from the existing workforce and as part of cost-cutting measures. 'The existing regular staff, who are getting high salaries, are not cooperating for several reasons, which is not right to discuss openly. Every month, staff are retiring and no new staff have been recruited. The recruitment has been stopped several years back. Since these departments (sinter & RHMP) are one of the key operational areas of the steel plant, the management has decided to go for outsourcing the maintenance to achieve desired results. The workforce will come under the control of private individuals, and the steel plant will have no direct link with the workforce once the agreement is done, ' a top RINL-VSP official told The Hindu. Apart from the Sinter and RHMP plants, RINL has several other major operational units such as coke ovens, thermal power plant, blast furnaces, steel melting shops and rolling mills. All these plants were commissioned between 1989 and 1991, and have been operational since then. In the case of RMHP, there are stockyard beds used for storing and catering to various raw materials to the customer segments as per the demand. There are 14 beds in the Ore Handling Plant, 4 beds in the Iron Ore Storage, and 15 beds in the Coal Handling Plant. Since these raw materials are stored in open stockyards, during the rainy season due to high water content the raw materials slip on the track and cause jamming/obstruction to the movement of personnel and equipment and field machinery.
The Hindu
21-05-2025
- Politics
- The Hindu
BJP conspiring to hand over Vizag Steel to private players, says A.P. Congress chief Sharmila
The BJP-led NDA government at the Centre is using a 'silent tactic' to destabilise the Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited-Visakhapatnam Steel Plant (RINL-VSP), ultimately trying to hand it over to private companies, said Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee chief Y.S. Sharmila Reddy here on Wednesday. She was in the city to launch an indefinite strike at the plant site in support of the terminated contract workers of the steel plant. The government has conspired to destabilise the steel plant without allocating captive mines and even raw materials (iron ore). She said that while the plant once had 34,000 employees, that number has now dwindled to less than 20,000. 'The ₹11,400-crore revival package is a lie. The government has taken back ₹8,000 crore from the package in the form of various taxes and loan arrears. The government has conspired to slowly weaken the steel plant and finally give it to corporate companies like Adani,' said The coalition government in the State and its parties Jana Sena and Telugu Desam Party have also betrayed Vizag Steel and have not considered their election promises made during the poll campaigns. They said that they would save the steel plant if elected to power. She accused both Chief Minister Naidu and Deputy Chief Minister K. Pawan Kalyan of using the steel plant for their politics. She said that both of them are acting as silent spectators while their partner, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is trying to privatise the steel plant with all his might against the wishes of lakhs of people of Andhra Pradesh, including its employees and their families. City police late on Wednesday evening cleared the protest site where Ms. Sharmila Reddy launched an indefinite hunger strike in support of contract workers of Visakhapatnam Steel Plant. They shifted her from the site as well as other prominent agitators in the steel plant area. This resulted in a tense situation. Police forces were deployed at the site to ensure that no untoward incidents take place from the agitators of the steel plant trade unions and their supporters representing political parties, including Congress.
The Hindu
19-05-2025
- Business
- The Hindu
Revival package to facilitate private takeover, not to save VSP from privatisation: CITU national secretary
Former MP and CITU national general secretary Tapan Kumar Sen on Monday (May 19) said the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre hatched a plan to privatise the Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (RINL), the corporate entity of Visakhapatnam Steel Plant (VSP), four years ago with its 'disinvestment' announcement. Mr. Sen was in the city to participate in various programmes, including a meeting with the leaders and activists of the RINL-VSP trade unions to lead a nationwide protest on May 20. Addressing a press conference at the CITU office here, he said it is the right of every citizen, including the residents of Visakhapatnam, to fight for the protection of the plant for the sake of thousands of employees and their families, and the lakhs of people who indirectly depend on the plant for their livelihood. On the ₹11,400 crore revival package announced by the Centre earlier this year, Mr. Sen said the Centre had announced the package to facilitate private takeover in the future, not to save it from privatisation, invest in its infrastructure or pay off pending salaries of employees. He pointed out that there was a hidden agenda behind the revival package. The revival package is useless without the allocation of captive mines. Private steel companies in the country have their own mines and ore units, but the government did not think of arranging for these key facilities for the PSU. 'By buying raw materials from outside, Vizag Steel Plant spends ₹4,000 to ₹6,000 a tonne on ore, whereas if it is given its own mines, it costs only ₹600 a tonne,' Mr. Sen said.
