SAIL staff sore over likely strategic sale

Visakhapatnam: THE recent decision of the Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL) to dismantle the Raw Materials Division (RMD) set up in 1989 with head office in Kolkata has kicked up a row.

The decision to split the ownership of mines among two steel plants based in Odisha and Jharkhand has fuelled speculation that it might make the job easy for the central government to put up individual units owned by SAIL for strategic sale like Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited-the corporate entity of Visakhapatnam Steel Plant.

The SAIL board at its meeting on June 10 divided RMD into two groups viz. the Odisha group of mines merged with SAIL-Rourkela Steel Plant and the Jharkhand group of mines were brought under the SAIL-Bokaro Steel Plant.

A section of employees and executives of SAIL, the largest steelmaker under one group in the country, fear that this could be part of a game plan to put up individual units for sale in future on the lines of RINL, which is headquartered in Visakhapatnam.

State Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy during his two-day visit to Delhi, urged Union Steel Minister Dharmendra Pradhan to allot iron ore mines for RINL in Odisha as one of the alternatives to prevent privatisation of the Visakhapatnam Steel Plant.

RMD Officers' Association general secretary Chanchal Singh told Bizz Buzz on Sunday that the decision is not good for RMD executives and employees as they would be deprived of several benefits and forfeit their identity. He said the RMD was established in 1989 with a mission to cater to the betterment of SAIL collective.

Describing the decision as counterproductive, Singh, who is also the deputy general secretary of Steel Employees' Federation of India (SEFI), said RMD was performing better than the expectation since its inception and the SAIL board's decision had annoyed the RMD employees.

SAIL owns integrated steel plants at Rourkela, Bokaro, Bhillai, Iron and Steel Industry of India Ltd (IISCO)-Burnpur, Durgapur Alloy Steel Plant, Visvesvaraya Iron and Steel Plant (VISP)-Bhadravathi and other plants include Salem Stainless and Durgapur Alloy Steel Plant. Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs has already accorded approval for strategic sale of Salem Steel, Durgapur Alloy Steel Plant and VISP. There is already news doing rounds on privatisation of IISCO and Bhillai Steel Plant. There seems to be difference of opinion on SAIL board's decision among the leaders of SEFI as its general secretary Bimal Kumar Bisi, when contacted, told this correspondent that the decision to dismantle RMD and distribute the captive mines among Rourkela Steel Plant and Bokaro Steel Plant would help save overhead costs and benefit the company as a whole in future.

He said the employees of RMD based at Kolkata approximately 2,500 including 500 officers including 20,000 contract workers would be relocated at Rourkela and Bokaro. He said SAIL would save at least Rs 40 crore per annum by shifting the RMD operations from Kolkata to Rourkela and Bokaro. He said once shifted the workforce would be based nearer to the mining sites, a distance of 100 km from Rourkela and Bokaro instead of Kolkata, which is about 400 km from RMD mines.

Some of the employees of SAIL say that the dismantling of RMD would force Durgapur and Burnpur plants in West Bengal to face raw material insecurity like Visakhapatnam Steel Plant.