Singareni Collieries U-turn upsets Visakhapatnam Steel Plant employees

Visakhapatnam : The failure of the Telangana government to participate in the Expression of Interest (EoI) for Rs 5,000 crore for partnership in the supply of raw materials and providing working capital to Visakhapatnam Steel Plant (VSP) has left the employees disappointed and wonder whether the BRS was really serious to protect the VSP from privatisation.

It may be mentioned here that the RINL (Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited) had extended the last date for filing EOI by five days as the team from the SCCL wanted some time to take a final decision.

When BRS president K Chandrasekhar Rao said that they were opposed to the privatisation of VSP and if they came to power at the Centre, they would buy back the VSP if the NDA government goes ahead with disinvestment, the employees felt that the pink party was strongly behind them.

Till late on Thursday afternoon, they were pinning high hopes on the TS government. But the U-turn by the SCCL has left them disappointed. Sources in Hyderabad said that the SCCL did not receive any communication from the government regarding the submission of the EOI. The employees were also hoping that the Steel Authority of India would also file the EOI. The Union government is spending Rs 1 lakh crore to expand SAIL operations. Hence, they felt that the SAIL may come to their rescue and help revive the VSP. They feel that once again the Centre has given clear indication that there was no going back on the issue of disinvestment in the VSP. They appealed to all political parties to see that their political fight does not kill the VSP.