The Centre will take a call at an appropriate time on the proposed disinvestment of Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (RINL), the corporate entity of Visakhapatnam Steel Plant, after taking into account all aspects, its Chairman and Managing Director P. Madhusudan has said.
He was responding to the queries by the media on the issue here on Friday, on the sidelines of a national convention by the Computer Society of India (CSI) on disruptive technologies in the IT sector. The steel plant unions affiliated to the CITU and the AITUC staged separate demonstrations on Thursday in the plant, agitated by the reported comments of Union Minister of State for Steel Vishnu Deo Sai on the possible disinvestment of RINL.
The decision on disinvestment would be taken by the Union Government after studying the market conditions, the expansion project, and several other factors in depth, Mr. Madhusudan said, and added that he was not in a position to say anything more about it.
In response to a question on the present market scenario, he said the situation had improved considerably and stabilised to an extent, and the performance in the next quarter was bound to be good.
But there may be some increase in the cost of production, as there was a rise in the prices of coal and iron ore recently.
“There has been an increase of ₹400 to ₹500 per tonne of iron ore,” he said. The increase in raw material prices might also push up steel prices to an extent, he added.
