RINL Revival A Daunting Task With Drastic Staff Cuts

Visakhapatnam: As pressure is mounting to achieve optimal capacity of 7.3 million tonnes within next few months, it has become a daunting task for the management of Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (RINL) to achieve the targeted production after unveiling of Rs11,440-crore revival package by the Centre.

The main hindrance is the drastic pruning of employee strength due to various factors. Though with amount released under revival plan to RINL, the corporate entity of Visakhapatnam Steel Plant could achieve the desired results at least during the initial stage.

The reduction in debt liability from Rs35,000 crore by an estimated Rs.5,000 crore may not give much relief in interest burden if the production cost is not slashed drastically by operating all the three blast furnaces.

Presently, two blast furnaces are being operated by producing on an average 14,000 hot metals a day. If the third blast furnace is revived, the optimum production of 7.3 million tonnes per annum could be achieved, D Adinarayana, AITUC national vice-president, told Bizz Buzz. The employees' strength, which was 14,500 three years ago with a production of 5.1 million tonnes, has now come down to 13,000 due to VRS and superannuation. Out of 14,000 contract workers, he said gate pass is not issued to 600 and 1600 aged above 40 years are being asked to appear medical tests.