Working president of the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) and Telangana Minister for IT, Industries and Urban Development K.T. Rama Rao has stated that a team of officials from the State Government including those from Singareni Collieries is in Visakhapatnam to study the goings on and examine the possibility of participation in bids for funding of working capital.
The objective behind sending the team of officials was to protect the interests of Telugu people being harmed by the Centre with its plans to privatise Vizag Steel Plant (RINL) as part of its attitude of socialisation of losses and privatisation of profits. On the other hand, the policy of the BRS is against privatisation of public sector undertakings (PSUs), he noted.
Drawing a parallel of killing a dog by branding it a rogue first, the BRS leader said the Centre had sown seeds for privatisation of VSP by not allotting iron ore mines to it from the beginning. Addressing a press conference here on Tuesday, he alleged that a major conspiracy is being scripted against the interests of two Telugu-speaking States by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Government at the Centre behind its VSP privatisation plan.
He pointed out that the Centre had declared that establishing a steel plant at Bayyaram as promised in the AP Reorganisation Act was not feasible citing low quality iron ore, with ferrous content of 64%. However, the Telangana Government explained to the Centre how it could be feasible by allotting iron ore mines at Bailadila in Chhattisgarh both to Bayyaram steel plant and that the State would share the costs in laying a slurry pipeline for about 160 km to bring the high grade ore mined there.
Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao and he (Mr. Rama Rao) explained it to Prime Minister Narendra Modi by meeting him personally in the past and also suggested that iron ore mines in Bailadila could also be allotted to steel plant at Kadapa, also promised in the Reorganisation Act, as also to ensure rawmaterial to VSP, which was located about 600 km from Bailadila. The pleas were turned down on the grounds non-feasibility.
The Centre did not consider the request but had taken a decision to allot mines in Bailadila to Japanese and South Korean steel makers in April 2018. However, once the Adani Group floated an iron ore mining company in September 2018 and announced setting up an integrated steel plant at Mundra in Gujarat, about 1,800 km away from Bailadila, in a joint venture with a Korean steel maker, the Centre allotted the mines to the joint venture terming it feasible.
The conspiracy behind denying allotment of mines at Bailadila to Bayyaram and VSP was to handover 1.34 billion tonnes of high grade iron reserves there worth about ₹6 lakh crore to the friendly corporate company, Mr. Rama Rao alleged and demanded that the Centre cancel the mines allotted to the Adani JV and allot them to Bayyaram and VSP to ensure its survival and turning it into profits.