Fire at VSP causes loss of crores

Yet another mishap plagued the Visakhapatnam Steel Plant (VSP) when, early on Monday morning, nearly 100 tonnnes of molten metal was spilled from a leak in the ladle for transporting the molten metal. While no casualties have been reported, a transfer car and track were burnt in the incident.

“The mishap was due to the brittle crack in the ladle, transporting the molten steel from SMS (steel melting shop) to Lower and Medium Merchant Structural Mill (LMMSM),” a VSP official told The Sunday Indian. According to him, even rough estimates have put losses at crores of rupees.

According to officials, the accident was not due to any human mistake but caused due to cracks which can form due to the atmospheric overtones. However, the general secretary of Visakha Steel Workers' Union (VSWU), N Rama Rao termed these arguments as 'lame excuses' and demanded high level probes and a white paper on the causes of the accidents.

Visakha Steel Employees' Union honorary president Padi Trinadha Rao spoke in similar tunes. “When the VSP is gearing up to become a state of art unit in steel production, it is really ridiculous on its part to be an accident-prone plant. Unless the basic problems of ladle leakages are not found with permanent solutions, the expansion hyperboles will remain a sham,” Rao said while speaking to TSI.

In the mean while, in a realization of long- pending demands on the expansion of VSP, a memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed recently between the state government and the Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (RINL) of VSP. According to this, RINL will invest a whopping Rs. 44,000 crore into the expansion of the plant.