An all-party meeting convened here at the CPM office on Sunday warned Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd (Visakhapatnam steel plant) of an agitation, if it did not scrap the memoranda of understanding (MoUs) it signed with the Railways to invest Rs 1,278 crore and set up units in Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.
Barring the Congress and the BJP, all other parties deputed their representatives to the roundtable meeting.
They strongly decried RINL management for “yielding to political pressure to invest Rs 1,000-crore in a forged wheel factory at Rae Bareli in Uttar Pradesh and Rs 278 crore in axle plant at New Jalpaiguri in West Bengal.”
They alleged that RINL was taking no steps to develop ancillaries in the State and was investing in other States.
The other PSU steel units were developing ancillaries in the States where they were located and generating a lot of employment.
“The decisions of RINL will not benefit Andhra Pradesh, and, therefore, we oppose the move,” declared a resolution adopted at the meeting.
It was decided at the meeting to submit representations to Union Minister of State for Commerce and Industry D. Purandeswari and District Collector V. Seshadri.
If there was no action within a reasonable time, a demonstration would be organised at the collector’s office and later the agitation would be intensified.
Those who attended the meeting included the TDP district coordination committee secretary P.S. Naidu, YSR Congress Party leaders Pakki Diwakar, Narayana Eswara Rao, CPI district executive member B. Venkata Rao, Greater Visakha unit joint secretary K. Satya Anjaneyulu, Lok Satta city president K. Suresh, the CPI(M) district secretary Ch. Narsinga Rao, city secretariat member V.S. Padmanabha Raju and city secretary B. Ganga Rao.
The leaders also criticised the AP Government for not allotting captive iron ore mines to RINL, even though successive chief ministers had made promises on that count.