The recent decision to revive disinvestment of the Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited, a navratna company, by the BJP-led NDA government would be suicidal, veteran trade union leader and AITUC national general secretary Amarjeet Kaur said on Sunday.
Ms. Kaur, who was here to participate in the general body meeting of the Visakha Steel Workers’ Union at Ukkunagaram, told The Hindu that the losses suffered by the RINL, the corporate entity of the Visakhapatnam Steel Plant, should not be an alibi to pave the way for privatisation of India’s first shore-based steel plant.
Saying the RINL was on recovery path and suffered losses due to prolonged slump in economy and adverse market conditions, she said even the government knew it very well that with a land bank of 25,000 acres and a highly competent workforce the RINL would have a bright future if it was allowed to function as a public sector unit.
Ms. Kaur said the PSU banks already had a bitter experience with the loans they had given to Essar and Jindal Steel. Public sector units always worked with commitment whereas the private sector had a profit motive. She said the government had invested a few thousand crores in the PSU steel plants whereas their asset value had gone up to ₹10 lakh crore.
Stating that the RINL and SAIL had great asset value compared to the government’s investment in them, she said there was no justification to privatise the RINL and SAIL plants at Bhilai and Bokaro. She said though the government was talking about offloading 10% of its shareholding in the RINL, it would ultimately lead to 100% privatisation like that of the Dredging Corporation of India (DCI), a profit-making PSU with corporate office in Visakhapatnam.
She said the government should immediately allot captive mines to provide raw material security to the RINL to enable it reduce production cost substantially.
The trade union leader blamed faulty economic policies of the NDA and the erstwhile UPA government for over ₹7 lakh crore given to the private sector turning into non-performing assets (NPA).
On the Financial Resolution and Deposit Insurance (FRDI), she said this would mainly help big corporates. Deposits from the public would be targeted at the time when a bank was liquidated, she alleged.
