RINL Should Be Merged With SAIL : SEFI

Meeting of the Steel Executive Federation of India (SEFI) Council was held in New Delhi today, which discussed Visakha & Nagarnagar Steel plant (RINL) should be merged with Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL). The meeting was chaired by Mr. N.K. Banchor, Chairman of SEFI and General Secretary Mr. Malik conducted the meeting.

President of Visakha Steel Executives Association Katam S.S. Chandra Rao, Vice President Chandra Venkateswara Rao from Visakha Steel Plant, President, General Secretaries and council members from all steel plants participated in this meeting. The members of the council appealed to the Government of India that steel industries should be kept as a priority sector as an important industry and main agenda in this meeting was Visakha Steel Plant (RINL) and NMDC’s Naganagar steel plant should be merged into Steel Authority of India Limited and made into a mega multi-purpose plant.

Those attending the meeting said that halting of privatization of Salem Steel Plantn is a good sign if all steel plants are merged in the same way. According to the desire of the Government of India, this merger will support the target of reaching 300 million tonnes and the advantages of Visakha Steel Plant (RINL) being merged with the Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) were comprehensively explained through a power point presentation by President Katm SS Chandra Rao.

SAIL is going to increasing the capacity to 10 million tons of production capacity by spending around one lakh crores is a huge financial burden in future becuae SAIL also has to take loans from banks for expansion and the Indian government will not give a single rupee, hence SAIL is also like RINL has may face finance burden. SAIL and GOI should plan an alternative that Visakha Steel Plant, Nagannagar Plant and SAIL have been thoroughly explained in this power point presentation.

This would also help utilization of iron ore mines, reduction of logistics costs, ease of export, finished products and import of raw minerals which is the way to compete with private & international companies steel plants in the domestic and international market, utilization of human resources, availability of land for further expansion, and establishing a financially sound system etc., was explained in the power point presentation elaborately.

Vice President Chandra Venkateswara Rao, who participated in this council meeting, said that if the Steel Authority of India Limited accepted the same model of MoU that Visakhapatnam steel plant had done the with Jindal, there would be immediate relief and profit to both orgniisations, hence SEFI should work in that way. He also informed that the possibility of increasing SAIL turnover by one million tonnes in this fincial year would be financially viable.

After the power point presentation, the resolution passed by the Visakha Steel Trade Unions and Associations demanding the remerge of Visakha Steel (RINL) in to SAIL, was handed over to the Chairman of SEFI.