The move to construct a world-class Sports City at Ukkunagaram on the land belonging to Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited, the corporate entity of Visakhapatnam Steel Plant, has kicked up a row.
Unions affiliated to various organisations are crying foul over the move following an announcement made by HRD Minister Ganta Srinivasa Rao on Wednesday that RINL had expressed its willingness to allot 250 acres.
Sources told The Hindu that the State government had already written a letter to RINL management to part with land for developing Sports City.
No final decision has been taken on allotment of land, the sources said.
Their bitter experience
Visakha Steel Employees’ Congress (recognised union) general secretary Mantri Rajasekhar and Steel Plant Employees’ Union (CITU) vice-presidents N. Rama Rao and J. Simhachalam said there was an attempt to acquire the land by putting pressure on the Centre using NDA connections and later hand over the facilities to private parties for maintenance.
They recalled their bitter experience in the past when pressure was brought on the RINL management to surrender 1400 acres for development of a private port at Gangavaram, on the backyard of VSP and clarified that they were not opposed to development of sports infrastructure.
“If the Sports City is developed as a joint venture by RINL and State Government we will not have any objection. Even India’s first medical devices’ manufacturing park near VSP, for which Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu laid the foundation stone recently, should have been developed on RINL land by making the public sector and the State government joint venture partners.
The unions say so far RINL despite being a Navratna company is deprived of captive mines.
Neither the State government allotted iron ore mines in Khammam and West Godavari nor considered its request so far to give preferential treatment to steel produced by RINL for use in the construction of new capital at Amaravati, they said.
