Industry Minister KTR has asked the Union government to stop the plot to hand over Rs 15 trillion worth of VSPs.
Posted Date – 01:06 PM, Sunday – 4/2/23
Hyderabad: Industry Minister and BRS Working Chairman KT Rama Rao has asked the Union government to abandon plans to privatize Visakhapatnam Steel Plant (VSP) and asked the BJP-led center to study the possibility of merging VSP with Steel Authority of India Ltd.
In an open letter to the center on Sunday, he said the federal government had orchestrated a conspiracy to hand VSP over to private companies under the guise of pooling working capital and raw material revenue.
The industry minister noted that the BJP government has waived corporate loans worth Rs. 12.5 trillion. He asked why Prime Minister Narendra Modi had no sympathy for VSP.
He demanded that the Union government should extend support, focus revenue on working capital and buy VSP’s products.
The Modi government should provide financial assistance of Rs 5,000 crore to VSP. He reminded that in the past, VSP had repaid with interest the loans given by the PV Narasimha Rao and Atal Bihari Vajpayee governments.
He demanded that the Union government stop the conspiracy to hand over Rs 15 trillion worth of VSPs to private companies for negligible value.
The Minister of Industry further noted that the letter of intent and proposed agreement issued by the VSP management lacked specifics. He said it was nothing more than a ploy to hand over VSP to a private company under the guise of pooling working capital and raw material revenue.
KTR said it is the responsibility of the people of both countries to safeguard the interests of the VSP, and the BRS party strongly condemned such attempts.
He also directed BRS AP department chief Thota Chandrashekhar to give unconditional support to the VSP union.
In sounding the clarion call to all trade unions of different public sector enterprises (PSUs), he called on them to join hands with BRS to combat the Modi government’s conspiracy to sell PSUs for the benefit of a few corporate tycoons.
