RINL breathes easy with supply of coal from Gangavaram Port restored

Visakhapatnam: The management of Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (RINL) has heaved a sigh of relief with slight improvement in availability of coking coal from the Adani Gangavaram Port Limited (AGPL), with which it has a conveyor belt and Visakhapatnam Port Authority (VPA) from where imported coal is being transported by rakes through Railways. With the stoppage of supply of coal from AGPL due to court orders obtained by several suppliers due to default in settlement of their dues within stipulated time, RINL, the corporate entity of Visakhapatnam was operating only one of the three blast furnaces for the past few days. All the five coke oven batteries used to be operated with minimal pushing due to severe shortage of coking coal, a prerequisite for steelmaking. The situation reminded the crisis RINL had faced some time ago when for nearly a month coking coal supply from AGPL completely suspended due to a lightning strike launched by the workers.

At that time, VPA came to the rescue of RINL, with the diversion of some of the ships carrying imported coal from Indonesia, New Zealand, Australia and Africa to the major port and transporting it to the steel plant by rakes.

RINL received 9,000 tonnes on Saturday from AGPL and another 4,000 from VPA. Another rake is being filled from VPA. An estimated 1.5 lakh tonne is stuck at AGPL, sources said.

The restoration of coal supply from AGPL, albeit in limited quantity and supply by rakes from VPA from Saturday came as a breather for the RINL management and the workforce. VSP has a production capacity of 7.3 million tonnes. However, due to raw material crisis and working capital crunch it has not been able to operate at optimal capacity with the unions alleging that production is being curtailed to complicate its financial situation further to pave its way for privatisation, as per decision taken by Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs in January, 2021.

“We have decided to organise rasta roko in all the districts in Andhra Pradesh on September 10 so as to convince Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, Deputy Chief Minister K Pawan Kalyan and BJP State president Daggubati Purandeswari to use their good offices for putting pressure on the Centre to either launch a revival package or merge RINL with the steel major SAIL as a long-term solution,” Mantri Rajasekhar, chairman of Vizag Steel Porata Parirakshana Samiti, told Bizz Buzz on Sunday.

The committee formed by 26 unions belonging to various affiliations is agitating apolitcally to retain RINL as a public sector. Union Steel Minister HD Kumaraswamy and MoS for Steel Srinivasa Varma had promised during their last visit to VSP that they would announce a favourable decision to strengthen RINL.

“Since our inception, we have paid Rs 54,300 crore as taxes in different forms to the powers-that-be. The steel plant is a symbol of pride for Telugu people as it was achieved after the Visakha Ukku Andhrula Hakku agitation, which claimed the sacrifice of 36 fighters, who laid down their lives for establishment of the steel plant, the first shore-based integrated plant in India,” said J Ayodhyaram, honorary president of Steel Plant Employees’ Union (SPEU).

He said the steel plant, on which nearly one lakh families are dependent on their livelihood, is considered the lifeline for North Andhra Pradesh. As there are no fresh recruitments since 2019, the strength of employees (including executives) has come down

from 17,500 to 13,500.