The KCR led Telangana government has not submitted any bids on saturday in response to Expression of Interest (EoI) notification by Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (RINL) also known as Vizag steel plant.There was much hype that was created in political circles for the past few days regarding investing Rs 5,000 crore in the Visakhapatnam Steel Plant by Singareni Collieries Company Ltd (SCCL) representing the Telangana government.
But the state government is understood to have taken a U-turn and may not participate in the bidding.It may be mentioned here that an official delegation from the SCCL had visited the plant and studied the feasibility of the investments in the plant.
Sources said that the SCCL delegation had given a report to Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao stating that no decision should be taken in a hurry as it involves huge investment.
The SCCL, further is learnt, to have said that the issue requires greater and in-depth study on the viability of the plant and whether the employees of steel plant will cooperate or not before a decision was taken.
They felt that the company was facing several challenges and required huge capital investment to run the plant.In the backdrop of this, top officials said that the government was not in a mood to go in for bidding in a hurry and make such a huge financial commitment.
It also felt that to run the plant without any hurdles the support from the workers of VSP was necessary.This is one issue which needs to be examined thoroughly before investing money, sources said.
Meanwhile, Saturday was the last date for filing the bid, but the VSP had extended the date up to April 20 to attract more bids.
Twenty two companies have submitted their bids in response to Expression of Interest (EoI) notification by Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (RINL) so far.It has been reported that there were six international steel export companies among the bidders.
Interestingly, former IPS officer VV Laxminararyana has submitted a bid on behalf of a private company.
The former bureaucrat handed over his bid papers to the steel plant CGM(Marketing) Satyanand on Saturday.
