Steel staff meet Congress chief Kharge, pleads against VSP privatization

VISAKHAPATNAM: Members of the Visakha Ukku Parirakshana Committee called on AICC president Malikarjuna Kharge in New Delhi on Monday and urged him to pressurise the central government for withdrawal of the VSP privatisation plans.

They told the Congress president that the steel plant started with a 3.4 million tonne capacity and it expanded to 7.3 million tonnes per annum. “VSP has the potential to produce 8.4 million tonnes of crude steel.”

“However, the production has been reduced to half due to a lack of captive mines. This resulted in high input costs. The losses of the company have increased due to the decision to go for strategic sale of VSP,” they claimed in a memorandum submitted to the AICC chief.

“Not considering the presentations made by MPs and others, the Centre was still going ahead with the decision to privatize the steel plant,” it said.

The memorandum added that if the present strategy continued, even after spending huge sums to expand the steel plant capacity, it will lead to more losses even in the future.

“At this stage, increased production only can bring down the cost of the production. Earlier, when the plant was in crisis from 1998 to 2001, capacity utilization crossed the 100 per cent mark and the cost of production came down. The plant started making profits for the first time since its inception, in October 2001, the memorandum claimed.