The Centre will not go ahead with the privatization of the steel plant for the time being and instead will strengthen the Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (RINL), the corporate entity of Vizag Steel Plant, said Union Minister of State for Steel Faggan Singh Kulaste at Visakhapatnam on Thursday.

The Centre was also looking at resolving the issue of captive mines. The BRS claimed that the Centre’s announcement came in the wake of Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao’s decision to participate in the bidding to raise working capital for the steel plant through Singareni Collieries.

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The NDA government’s decision may also be prompted by the stiff resistance it faced from several quarters including the employees against its decision to privatize Visakhapatnam Steel Plant considering that the Assembly and General elections will be held next year and the BJP has some presence in the port city.

“At this moment, on this date we don’t have any such intention. We are going to strengthen the RINL in future. We are also sorting out the problem of mining and I feel in future RINL will be able to run on its own,” said the Union Minister.

He went on to add that the move by the BRS government in Telangana to participate in the bidding to raise working capital was just a political move. RINL recently invited Expression of Interest (EoI) to provide working capital and raw materials after it faced severe shortage to keep the plant running. Khulaste will be holding discussions with the management, workers’ unions and all stakeholders.

The workers have been agitating for almost two years after the Centre’s plan for 100 per cent disinvestment of RINL was revealed. With both the TDP and YSRCP keen to keep the central leadership of BJP in good humour there wasn’t much political pressure on the Centre before the BRS president K Chandrasekhar Rao decided to enter the scene.

Telangana Industry Minister KT Rama Rao said the Centre’s decision to back out was prompted by the Chief Minister’s decision to send officials of Singaren Collieries to Vizag. He said: “It was our chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao who spoke strongly on the issue of Visakha Steel. We fought hard and now the Centre has made a statement on temporarily backing down on the privatization of Visakha steel. KCR’s blow is effective in that way.”

BRS leader in Andhra Pradesh Ravela Kishore Babu said: “The government of India going back on the privatisation of Vizag Steel plant is a victory for BRS which is opposing any kind of privatisation. When the main political parties in AP could not fight for the steel plant, BRS under the leadership of KCR started fighting to save the steel plant from being privatised.”

The BRS working president KT Rama Rao had accused the Centre of pushing VSP into loss in order to hand it over to Adani and Korean steelmaker Posco who have set up a steel plant at Mundra in Gujarat.