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G. Gurumurthy

SALEM, May 11

THE Union Minister for Steel, Mr Braja Kishore Tripathy, has sought the support from the ruling AIADMK Government in Tamil Nadu to push through the proposed divestment plan for the public sector Salem Steel Plant (SSP). The divestment of SSP became crucial as the special steel plant had to acquire two important backward processes - steel making and slab casting facilities - to bring down its cost of operation and make its products cost competitive in the market.

But SSP's parent company, SAIL, was not in a position to invest further in backward integration, which, according to Mr Tripathy, would cost more than Rs 800 crore in present-day cost. Hence the joint venture proposal to infuse the required funds in SSP to make it viable.

The Union Steel Minister who had a review meeting with the officials/employees of SSP here, later told newspersons that he proposed to meet the Chief Minister in a day or two when he would explain the situation and seek the State Government's support.

With regard to the identification of the joint venture partners for SSP, the Union Minister has pointed out that SAIL has so far invited only `expressions of interests' from the probable strategic partners and two parties - Tata-Usinor and Jindal-ALZ - had responded. These parties could not undertake due diligence due to resistance from SSP workers. The Minister is however hopeful that the SSP workers who are not opposed to joint venture for the downstream steel making and slab casting processes would see reason and agree to the divestment.

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