Focus on increased production, steel officials told

Visakhapatnam: The survival and viability of Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (RINL), the corporate entity of Visakhapatnam Steel Plant (VSP), depends largely on increased production levels, underlined Joint Secretaries of the Ministry of Steel Abhijit Narendra and Daya Nidhan Pandey.

Interacting with employees in the presence of RINL CMD (Addl-charge) Ajit Kumar Saxena, Abhijit Narendra and Daya Nidhan Pandey indicated that VSP had earlier operated with only one blast furnace, achieving around 30 percent production until September last. “With financial support from the Central government and revival of two blast furnaces, the steel plant was steered to a recovery path. The plant must ideally achieve 19,000 tonnes of hot metal production per day, ensuring 92.5 percent capacity utilisation,” the Joint Secretaries and CMD reiterated.

However, Abhijit Narendra and Daya Nidhan Pandey expressed concern that production has not been improved after the recommencement of the third blast furnace and in fact, declined in the current month. They mentioned that further financial support from the Centre may not be feasible and underlined that achieving production targets are essential for the plant’s sustenance.

Around 1,000 employees participated in the interactive session. A digital presentation was given during the sessions about the current operational and financial status of the RINL. Production is not getting stabilised at expected level and repeated conveyor breakdowns have become the cause for concern, that too in the past 10 days, the Joint Secretaries expressed concern.

About frequent conveyor breakdowns, the Joint Secretaries said they did not seemingly appear to be due to poor maintenance or other reasons but did not rule out the possibility of miscreants’ involvement either.

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 have been installed at all necessary points and surveillance will be strengthened to avoid such incidents,” they emphasised.

The recent conveyor belt failures were reported to the police as the officials suspect involvement of miscreants.

Later, a site visit was made by Joint Secretaries, CMD along with the senior officials. Visakhapatnam District Collector MN Harendhira Prasad and Commissioner of Police Shankhabratha Bagchi were also present during the site visit.