Orissa Govt non-committal on NINL merger with SAIL: INTUC

Bhubaneswar, Apr 3 (UNI) The Indian National Trade Union Congress today demanded the Orissa government to make its stand clear on the takeover of the Neelachal Ispat Nigam Limited(NINL) by SAIL.

Addressing newspersons here, INTUC Orissa unit President R C Khuntia and Kalinga Nagar Surakhya Sangh Secretary Pratap Kumar Jena alleged that the Orissa government was deliberately dilly dallying the process with some ulterior motive to hand over its share to the private business houses.

Commissioned for production in 2002, the NINL, a joint venture of MMTC and the Orissa government, is yet to attain the integrated steel plant status in the absence of any further investment on its expansion either by the state government or the MMTC.

The SAIL, on the other hand, Mr Khuntia said was ready to invest Rs 12,300 crores in the plant to make it a fully integrated steel plant with a capacity of 3.5 million tonnes per anum.

He said the Orissa government was opposed to the merger of NINL with SAIL even though the Disinvestment Ministry had cleared the proposal.

While the Orissa government through OMC and the IPICOL, have a stake of 26.29 per cent, the MMTC had a share of 49.76 per cent.

The SAIL has proposed to convert the NINL share(Rs.27.20 per share) of the state government into SAIL share(Rs.174.90) yet the state government was not taking any interest to hand over the plant to the SAIL, Mr Khuntia said.

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