Salaries, pensions not being paid on time to Visakhapatnam Steel Plant staff, says BJP MP in Rajya Sabha
The Hindu
GVL Narasimha Rao, BJP Rajya Sabha MP, informed the House that RINL Visakhapatnam Steel Plant employees, contract workers & executives have not been paid salaries & pensions on time for months. He urged the Centre to resolve the issues & provide financial aid as done by Vajpayee govt. 32 people sacrificed their lives for the plant's establishment in the 1980s. Congress govt. responsible for losses & BJP govt. has no role. Timely payment of salaries & pensions, & promotions of executives must be ensured.
Rajya Sabha member from BJP G.V.L. Narasimha Rao has informed the Rajya Sabha that salaries and pensions of RINL Visakhapatnam Steel Plant employees, contract workers and executives are not being paid on time for several months. He sought the Centre’s immediate attention to resolve the several issues including the salaries and pensions, during his speech in the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday, according to a release here.
The MP said that the successive Congress governments were responsible for the plant’s present losses, and the BJP government has no role in it. He said that the Union government took back its earlier decision of disinvestment of the plant.
Briefing about the present status of the steel plant, the MP appealed to the Centre to take steps for the timely payment of salaries and pensions for executives, contract workers and pensioners. Not only the salaries, promotions of executives have also been stopped from 2021 onwards. Many young executives from premier institutes like IITs and NITs are also not given time bound promotions, he added.
He reminded that 32 people had sacrificed their lives for the establishment of steel plant in the 1980s. The plant had started its production in 1989. The plant had earned profits for several years. When the Congress was in power in Andhra Pradesh for 10 years from 2004 to 2014, and despite the fact that there were 33 Congress MPs from the State at that time, no one cared about the allocation of steel plant mines to RINL, he alleged.
“Visakha Steel Plant workers have been demanding preferential allocation of captive iron ore mines for decades. Due to the gross negligence of the previous Central and State Governments, the plant is currently suffering severe losses,” Mr. Rao alleged.
“I appeal to the Union government to provide financial assistance to RINL as was done by the Vajpayee government by giving ₹1,333 crore after RINL was referred to the Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction (BIFR) in 2000,” the MP said.