Steel Plant Employees’ Union (CITU) and Visakha Steel Employees’ Congress (INTUC) on Wednesday sought a CBI probe into smuggling of expensive products from Visakhapatnam Steel Plant.
SPEU honorary president Ch. Narsinga Rao and senior leaders N. Rama Rao, J. Ayodhyaram and Y.T. Dasu called on Commissioner of Police B. Shivadhar Reddy and CBI DIG G. Nageswara Rao and sought their support for handing over the case from Steel Plant Police to the premier investigation agency.
In another development, VSEC president Gandham Venkata Rao and deputy general secretary Neerukonda Ramachandra Rao submitted a representation to VSP Chief Vigilance Officer B. Siddardh Kumar to hand over the case to CBI as several big people were involved in the scam.
Mr. Narsinga Rao said the Commissioner of Police and the CBI DIG gave a patient hearing to their demand and said they would take action as per law. He said several bigwigs were behind the racket which they suspected that was going on for past three years or so causing a loss of crores of rupees to the steel plant.
Meanwhile, the Telugu Desam alleged that seizure of a lorry load of finished products was not a stray incident and the fraud was going on for the past several years, causing a loss of nearly Rs. 10,000 crore. Senior party leader and former minister Bandaru Satyanarayana Murthy said at a press conference that many must be involved in this kind of theft of products and the probe should cover the CISF officers, politicians, transport contractors, rolling mills, officers of VSP involved at every stage of sending out a finished product.
“Lot of truth would come out if the CBI probed how transport contractors and others became multi-millionaires in a short time,” he said.
The party would submit a memorandum on Thursday to the Chairman and Managing Director of VSP on the fraud going on in VSP.
Some politicians were trying to hush up the issue without a probe since many culprits would be exposed, he said. The CBI should also probe into the appointment of CISF Commandants to the plant.
Mr. Satyanarayana Murthy regretted that VSP which was established after many sacrificed their lives was being looted by selfish persons. Mr. Satyanarayana Murthy and party’s city president V. Ganesh Kumar said CISF’s role in material being smuggled out of Visakhapatnam port should also be probed.
Party leaders Harshavardhan Kumar and others were present.
