By Our Correspondent
JAJPUR/BHUBANESWAR: With Employees and Workers of defunct Nilachal Ispat Nigam Limited (NINL) located at Kalinga Nagar in Odisha’s Chrome rich Jajpur, running from pillar to post for resumption of the plant that closed since years, the Naveen Patnaik led Government here has written to NINL Management seeking pro-active action in supplying medical grade oxygen to healthcare institutions
IPICOL MD Nitin Jawale in a letter bearing no-1154 dated April 23, 2021, to Chief executive Officer, of NINL, argued that precious lives can be saved by your proactive
action in supplying medical grade oxygen to healthcare institutions
“As you are aware, the country is going through an unprecedented crisis in the form of second wave of Covid-19 pandemic. Precious lives can be saved by your proactive action in supplying medical grade oxygen to healthcare institutions. Considering the nature of importance, you are requested to supply medical oxygen from your existing oxygen plant. The detail of consumer list will be shared in later stage. For operationalise your unit, Govt. of Odisha will glad to facilitate for any kind of support required,”IPICOL MD Jawale wrote to CEO of NINL, copy the letter of which is available with www.indianewsdiary.com
It may be noted here that production of NINL (Neelachal Ispat Nigam Ltd., a 1.1 MTPA integrated Iron & Steel Plant has been stopped from Dt: 26.03.2020. After the decision of strategic disinvestment of 100% shares in NINL taken by the Central Government, promoters have stopped further funding for running of the plant leading to suspension of production of all units. NINL has Blast Furnace of 1.1 Million Ton annual Hot Metal production capacity along with Sinter Plant, Coke Oven, Steel Melting Shop (SMS)., Lime &Dolo Calcination Plant, Pig Casting Unit and also own captive mines. Besides this an Oxygen Plant capacity of 418 tonnes per day was commissioned in April 2013.
Ajit Kumar Pradhan, General Secretary, Neelachal Executive Association (NEA), NINL said that during this 2nd phase of COVID pandemic scarcity of oxygen supply in medicals and hospitals is very much observed. Recent death at Nasik Maharastra and various hospitals of Delhi were in the news for shortage of oxygen cylinders. Medical treatments were hampered at many places due to disruption or short supply of oxygen. To save lives and to serve the nation all the steel plants are supplying oxygen cylinders or tankers as per their capacity or feasibility throughout the nation. This could also happen in NINL case by restarting it’s oxygen plant within no time.
As COVID cases are surging day by day throughout the country, the disinvestment process of NINL going on by DIPAM under the aegis of Ministry of Finance may not be feasible in near future. To save this glorious asset NINL may be revived by merging with SAIL/RINL/NMDC and immediate resumption of production will bring harmony in the industrial region which will save livelihood of 10000 people who are directly or indirectly dependent.
Even if selling of finished products lying at NINL premises is going in full swing but its employees were not paid proportionately. Only 14 crore rupees have been disbursed towards salary payment where as approximately Rs 50 crore have generated from sale of various products. Still salary of more than 12 months are pending including statutory dues. This has also lead to restlessness among employees and strikes on several occasions. A corpus of Rs 150/175 crore is to be released immediately for payment of salaries & arrears as noted in the minutes of meeting dated 01.12.2020, NINL Execution Association said.
