By Our Correspondent
NEW DELHI/BHUBANESWAR: The ruling BJD Lok Sabha MP from Dhenkanal in Odisha, Mahesh sahoo has written letter to Bhagwat Kishanrao Karad, Union Minister of State for Finance for payment of salary arrears of NINL employees and Revive Neelachal Ispat Nigam Ltd by merging with SAIL/RINL/NMDC.
On 09 Mar 2021 NINL has got permission to sell 50% of annual capacity of iron ore mines to sell in open market to meet employee salary & arrear salary with other legitimate dues. Even if MDO has been selected but production from mines will take time. Employees of NINL are helpless, almost 2 years plant production is stopped, no steps from shareholders or both Central Govt. & State Govt. have been proved fruitful. MP Dhenkanala has drawn attention of Cabinet Ministers to revive NINL by merging with SAIL/RINL/NMDC.
NEA-‘ NINL General Secretary Ajit Kumar Pradhan said Neelachal Ispat Nigam Ltd, Odisha (NINL) is a 1.1 MT integrated Iron & Steel Plant in Kalinganagar, Odisha. Plant production is stopped from mid Jun 2019 ( Blast furnace) i.e., more than 2 years. Long shutdown of the plant is severely affecting health of plant, equipment & machineries. After the declaration of disinvestment promoters were not interested to infuse fund.
A meeting co-chaired by Hon’ble Minister of Commerce & Industry, the then Hon’ble Minister of Petroleum, Natural Gas & Steel, Secretary, DIPAM and Bureaucrats & Directors from Department of Commerce, Ministry of Steel, SAIL, NMDC, OMC, IPICOL, NINL, Odisha Govt. on 10.11.2020 related to NINL related issues-reg. the same meeting was minuted ofn DT: 01.12.2020. Outcome of the meeting for payment of arrears and restructuring of NINL’s loan is as follows:
Point 8. Iv. In view of the promoters not being able to infuse further funds to NINL, in particular MMTC being under severe financial distress, DIPAM will take up the following with banks:a). To create a corpus of about Rs 150/175 crore to keep NINL disinvestment ready. This money can be used to pay salary arrears and other statutory dues of NINL till its disinvestment is completed. This money may be reimbursed to the banks first from the disinvestment proceeds. DIPAM can give them a comfort letter, if necessary, and
b). Request SBI and other Banks to restructure NINL’s loans till its disinvestment process is completed, using RBI guidelines on Covid restructuring, if required.
But the same has not happened yet. In this matter the Honourable Member of Parliament( Lok Sabha) Shri Mahesh sahoo raised a Unstarred Question No. 1014, which was answered by Shri Bhagwat Kishanrao Karad, the Hon’ble Union Minister of State for Finance on Jul 26,2021. regarding Creation of Corpus for Salaries and Arrears, DIPAM disown the responsibility to take up to create a corpus of about Rs 150/175 crore but assured priority payment of dues of employees from the consideration received from disinvestment. Also DIPAM did not confirm regarding its involvement in restructuring NINL’s loan, when this was assigned to DIPAM as mentioned in Minutes of the meeting.
To resolve the issue & considering the painful condition of NINL employees who are unpaid more than 1 year even in deadliest COVID Pandemic period, 17 nos pf employees have expired in want of salary & medical facility, MP Dhenkanal has written a letter on Dt:01.08.2021 to MOS Finance regarding “ Implementation of outcome of the MOM Dt 10.11.2020 by Creating Corpus to pay salary arrears and other statutory dues of NINL, restructuring NINL’s loans”.Copy of the above letter were submitted to Nirmala Sitharamana, Minister of Finance & Corporate Affairs and Piyush Vedprakash Goyal, Union Minister of Commerce and Industry.
The letter also mentions “to bring in peace, harmony and prosperity resumption of NINL plant production should be by merging with SAIL/RINL/NMDC”.Plant with its Captive Iron Ore Mines (110 Million ton reserve) is under disinvestment by DIPAM with the approval of CCEA on 8 Jan 2020. Being a public sector undertaking NINL was granted captive sources on out of turn basis without following the auction process. At no point of time, the Mines granted/allotted to this public sector undertaking since 1999 was explored. The raw materials were purchased from outside at higher rate. 4 deadlines of completion of disinvestment already crossed. Preliminary Information Memorandum was published to invite EOI (Expression of Interest) on 25 January 2021. Bidders have been shortlisted by DIPAM for further process. Till now completion of disinvestment process is unpredictable & uncertain, but employees of NINL are passing through a very pathetic situation. MMTC Ltd, under Ministry of Commerce, major Shareholder of NINL has informed that “disinvestment proceeds of Neelachal Ispat Nigam Ltd may be affected by cases/ Anglo Coal, Government directives and Covid-19 pandemic situation etc.”
