Steel Ministry Officials Emphasized the Need for Increased Production at Visakhapatnam Steel Plant

New Delhi: The survival and viability of Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited, Visakhapatnam Steel Plant (VSP) depends critically on increasing production levels, stated Shri  Abhijit Narendra and Shri Daya Nidhan Pandey, Joint Secretaries of the Ministry of Steel. Shri  Abhijit Narendra and Shri Daya Nidhan Pandey during their visit of  RINL interacted with a cross section of the employees in three sessions at the Learning & Development Centre (L&DC) Auditorium along with RINL CMD(Addl Charge) Sri Ajit Kumar Saxena.  Around 1000 employees participated in the interactive sessions in total. A powerpoint presentation was given during the sessions about the current operational and financial status of the RINL.
 

Shri  Abhijit Narendra and Shri Daya Nidhan Pandey indicated that VSP had earlier operated with only one Blast furnace, achieving around 30% production until September last year. With support from the Central Government’s financial package, two Blast furnaces were revived, bringing the plant on a recovery path. They emphasized that the plant must achieve 19,000 tonnes of hot metal production per day, ensuring 92.5% capacity utilization. The Joint Secretaries and CMD reiterated that further financial support from the Centre may not be feasible and underlined that achieving production targets are essential for the plant’s sustenance.
 

However, they expressed concern that production has not improved after the restart of the third blast furnace and in fact, declined in the current month. Production is not stabilizing at the required levels and repeated conveyor breakdowns were the points of concern. They expressed concern over the repeated breakdowns of the critical conveyor belts during the last 10 days. Upon observation of the breakdown nature, it is felt that breakdowns do not appear as exclusively due to poor maintenance or due to poor workmanship but the possibility of the miscreants also cannot be ruled out.    

The officials stressed that intentional damage to the equipment, if any, would not be tolerated and urged employees to work more vigilantly and any suspicious movement to be brought to the notice of the respective departments immediately. Employees should own the equipment and proper care must be taken to avoid such incidents. CC cameras are being installed at all the necessary points, illumination will be improved and surveillance will be strengthened to avoid such incidents.  

In a separate development, the incident was reported to the Police Department that the recent conveyor belt failures might be deliberate, prompting an investigation. Later a site visit was made by Joint Secretaries, CMD along with the senior officials.   Visakhapatnam District Magistrate Sri Harendhira Prasad, IAS, and Commissioner of Police Sri Shankhabratha Bagchi, IPS were also present during the site visit.