The Retired Steel Executives’ Association (RSEA) staged a protest at the Visakhapatnam Steel Plant on Thursday demanding that the plant be kept in the public sector.
They raised slogans against the proposal of the Centre to privatise the plant. Those who participated in the dharna include former ED (MM) S.N. Rao, former company secretary K.M.A. Narayana Swamy, former general managers Murali Mohan and E.M.S. Sastry, AITUC State leader Obulesu and K. Peddiraju.
In a letter to the Prime Minister, RSEA president Maturi Srinivasa Rao and secretary Dadi Siva Ramu recalled the sacrifices made by the people of Andhra Pradesh for the establishment of the steel plant and that 32 persons sacrificed their lives in the agitation for the steel plant.
After a lot of teething troubles, the plant had stabilised and it had started its production in 1991. The steel plant had gone through difficult phases and achieved a turnaround from the position of going to BIFR, to making cash profits, with the hard work and dedication of its workforce. The losses that VSP is said to be accruing are only operational with the primary reason being non-availability of captive iron ore mines, they said.
“Since 2007, its silver jubilee year, there have been promises that VSP will be sanctioned captive mines. Never was this promise made good, but many private steel companies were sanctioned captive mines. VSP had to compete with private companies and also with China steel companies, without a level-playing field. Despite these difficulties, till 2015, VSP has been making profits. Thereafter, the situation has worsened because of trade cycle effects. Fortunately, this year it is coming back to normalcy with prices of steel going up, and the company has started making profits. If captive mines are sanctioned, VSP can compete with any private company even internationally,” the protesters said.
As per Article 39(b) of the Constitution of India under the Directive Principles of State Policy, the State shall, in particular, direct its policy towards securing that the ownership and control of the material resources of the community are so distributed for common good, they said.
