Dissolution of SAIL RMD in Kolkata complete no scope of revision minister

Kolkata, Aug 26 (PTI) Union Steel Minister Ram Chandra Prasad Singh on Thursday said dissolution of the Raw Material Division (RMD) headquarters of state-owned Steel Authority of India (SAIL) in Kolkata is complete and there is no scope of revision, putting an end to hopes of a reversal of the decision as sought by the West Bengal government.
    The SAIL board gave its nod to the restructuring programme a few months ago when Dharmendra Pradhan was the steel minister. Control of the RMD's mines would be transferred to Rourkela Steel Plant in Odisha and Bokaro Steel Plant in Jharkhand depending on their location.
    "It is part of the restructuring process which the SAIL board has taken up. And now the process of shifting is complete including the manpower. So now, there is no scope of reviewing (the decision)," Singh told reporters on the sidelines of the inauguration of MSTC's new headquarters at New Town near here.
    The steel major is likely to save around Rs 40 crore a year courtesy of the move.
    West Bengal Finance Minister Amit Mitra in June had requested Pradhan to intervene and stop dismantling of the RMD in Kolkata, saying it would result in job loss amid the Covid-19 pandemic and would also be detrimental to the interests of two "iconic and profitable" steel plants of the state.
    It had been decided that non-contractual employees at the RMD headquarters would be shifted to Rourkela and Bokaro, but there was apprehension that contractual workers would lose their jobs.
    "It is even more alarming that with the dismantling of RMD, the iconic Durgapur and Burnpur integrated Steel plants in West Bengal would be left with no captive mines nor would they get supplies of iron since the RMD vertical would have been dismantled," the state finance minister had said in his letter to Pradhan.
    He was referring to the Durgapur Steel Plant (DSP) in Durgapur and the IISCO Steel Plant (ISP) in Burnpur, two profit-making SAIL units located in Paschim Bardhaman district, that employ 14,400 workers.
    The DSP was set up in the late 1950s while the ISP, one of the country's oldest steel plants, was established in 1918.
    Pradhan had, however, said two steel plants in West Bengal will not face iron ore crisis due to the restructuring in the company.
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(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)