The Steel Centre of Indian Trade Unions (Steel CITU) has raised questions about the role of the Visakhapatnam Steel Plant (VSP) management in mismanaging operations during the onslaught of Cyclone Hudhud in the city two weeks ago.
In a leaflet distributed at VSP, the Steel CITU squarely blamed VSP's director operations for failing to heed to the warnings of the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) as well as district administration about the cyclone threat to the city.
The Steel CITU said that despite IMD pinpointing that Hudhud would directly hit Vizag and district collector advising industries to shut down on the night of October 11 itself, VSP continued with its operations, resulting in huge losses.
Moreover, the trade union said that AP Transco had started taking preventive measures from the night of October 11, keeping the Thermal Power Plant (TPP) at VSP in island state (running independently without external supply), but VSP didn't take up emergency load shedding to prevent the power lines from tripping. "Why weren't necessary preventive measures taken? Why was production continuing in the blast furnace even at 10 am on October 12 (the day of cyclone)?" the union asked.
At the same time, Steel CITU said, "Five machines were working in SMS (Steel Melt Shop) on the night of October 11. Why? For whose sake was the WRM (wire rod mills) running in the C-Shift to take out record level output of 1037 tonnes?"
Questioning the management, Steel CITU said, "What was the role of the CMD during this time? CITU believes that the director operations is responsible for the losses to the plant."
The union also raised questions on the management's claims that it would get the plant up and running within eight hours after restoration of power. "The management stated that they would restart operations eight hours after restoration of power supply, but it took 40 hours to even start basic work at the plant. Why?" the Steel CITU questioned.
Moreover, Steel CITU expressed discontent over the steel plant management's initiative asking employees to contribute one day's salary for cyclone relief (circular (PL/RR/10(19)/199) on October 22). With every employee facing personal losses ranging from Rs 5,000 to Rs 50,000 due to the cyclone, the union questioned, "How fair is it to ask contributions from employees during this time?"
"If the management is so keen on contributing they can do so voluntarily from their own pockets but not without the consent of all the employees," a union leader told TOI.
Meanwhile, a statement from RINL CMD P Madhusudan said, "Critical units like coke ovens and blast furnaces have all been revived and production commenced from sinter plant and SMS as well. To scale up the production and to start the rolling mills, RINL is in the process of strengthening the power supply line from the state grid."
"With the VSP collective's continuous unstinted support and never ending dedication, RINL is all set to revive production in all the units and scale up volumes close to normal levels in about a week's time," the CMD said.
However, an RINL trade union leader also questioned this claim. "Will it be possible for RINL to return to the production-levels of October 11 in one week's time?" the leader asked.
Source: The Times of India
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