SEA team meets Purandeswari, seeks SAIL, RINL merger

Rajahmundry: Visakha Steel Executives Association (SEA) leaders on Sunday called on State BJP Ppresident Daggubati Purandeswari and SAIL independent Director Sagi Kasi Vishwanath Raju and requested to follow up the government to re-merge the RINL-Visakhapatnam Steel Plant with Steel Authority of India Limited.

SEA representatives thanked Purandeswari and expressed their gratitude for giving the letter on the June 26 to Union Steel Minister HD Kumaraswamy and appealed to them to work for the merger.

SAIL is planning to add another 10 million tonnes of steel capacity at a cost of Rs1 lakh crore, and on the other hand privatising the 7.3 million tonnes capacity of Visakha Steel is not a good decision. It was informed that Indian steel industry will be benefited in many ways if RINL is merged with SAIL.

Steel production can be supplied to many government projects like national highways, railways, ports etc at low cos.

SEA also requested to keep steel sector in strategic sector which is a key sector for country’s development.

Detailed presentation on benefits of SAIL-RINL merger was given to Purandeswari for follow-up at the Centre level.

SEA president Katam SS Chandra Rao, general secretary KVD Prasad, vice presidents Chandra Venkateswara Rao and joint secretary Ramawat Narasimha told her that 4,000 executives working in Vizag Steel are unhappy due to denial of promotions since 2020.