Anxious steel barons still wait for a date with CM

In the wake of the non-availability of raw materials at economical prices, exorbitant transportation cost and non-rationalisation of royalty issue, and when the steel industries in Odisha are forced to operate at one-third of their installed capacity, the Indian Steel Association which had sought an appointment with Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik to apprise him of their state of affairs, is still waiting for a date from the CM’s office.

The association had made the request to the CM’s office on August 12 for an appointment at the earliest.“Odisha has attracted large-scale investment for value-addition industries in the steel sector. In the present situation of the  unfavourable raw material supply chain as well as the unilateral imposition of taxes and other corpus contribution vis-a-vis the competition from China, it is becoming near-impossible to continue to have a sustainable business in the State. We have already solicited the time of the Hon’ble chief minister to apprise him of the impending issues and seek his policy interventions,” said the spokesperson of the Delhi-based association.

The high power delegation would comprise Tata Steel MD TV Narendran, Bhushan Steel MD Neeraj Singhal, Bhushan Steel & Power MD Sanjay Singhal, Essar Steel MD Prashant Ruia and Jindal Steel & Power ltd Chairman Naveen Jindal.On June 4, these and other steel industry barons had a meeting with Chief Secretary GC Pati. Though the Chief Secretary appreciated the plights of the industry, there has been no development at the ground to help it.

Meanwhile, the Visa Steel has shut down its operation on account of uneconomic operation for high transportation cost pushing the raw material cost to skyrocketing level. Added with the DMF and transportation cost, the raw material cost works out to about Rs2,900/tonne, resulting in the cost of the finished products at about `28,000/tonne against the sales price of Chinese steel at Rs22,000/tonne.

In addition to this, the Odisha Government has unilaterally imposed water conservation fund corpus contribution on the industries at a rate of `2.5 crore per cusec of the allotted water for construction of water harvesting structures in the upstream for irrigation and non-industrial uses.It is to be noted that Vedanta has also announced for shutdown of its operation. The Kalinga Iron Works, a State Government company, has too announced closure.