Having been forced towards shuddering halt by Cyclone Hudhud during a full production cycle, the prestigious Visakhapatnam Steel Plant of Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd is expected to take at least three to six months for getting back into action.
There are alarming reports that the plant should be fired soon enough because in case if it is not done, then nearly 2,000 tonnes of carbon monoxide gas, used in the coke oven batteries as well as the blast furnace, would be leaking out, resulting in a major threat to life.
RINL management is being blamed squarely for the current state of affairs as it had kept the plant running in full blast on Sunday morning despite the cyclone and prior warnings by the state government and district administration for minimizing its operations.
VSP is expected to face losses to the tune of Rs 5000 crore to Rs 10,000 crore since the plant was operating at full capacity and when APSEB switched off power at 8 AM, the plan suffered a trip due to the high production load and also due to the fact that power supply wasn’t revived after that.
