Vizag Steel Plant Achieves Record Production Amid Financial Struggles

Though RINL, popularly known as the Visakhapatnam Steel Plant, is at its lowest level in terms of finances and yet continues to strive to meet full salary demands to all employees, the plant recorded a new benchmark in production. During April 2024-January 2025, it produced an outstanding 31 lakh metric tonnes directly from its blast furnaces. This is quite an achievement for a plant that faces the financial problems it faces.

In the 2021-2022 financial year, RINL produced the highest level of annual hot metal at 57 lakh tonnes with the peak monthly production at 5.79 lakh tonnes in March 2021. In January 2025, the plant produced 4.18 lakh tonnes of hot metal. Along with the production, RINL has increased sales revenue through the sale of around 27 lakh metric tonnes of steel products across the country to ₹14,500 crores. This income was realized over ten months of the 2024-2025 financial year, with average monthly earnings of ₹1,450 crore.

However, despite these positive figures, the plant’s employees have been dealing with severe financial hardships. According to Varasala Srinivasa Rao, leader of the Visakha Ukku Parirakshana Porata Committee, the plant has not been able to pay full salaries for several months. Employees have only received 30-50% of their monthly wages, with more than 300% of salaries pending.

The plant is also suffering from a drastic reduction in workforce. Around 2,500 employees would retire or choose voluntary retirement by the end of this financial year. In the core departments, 1,200 senior employees will retire. The Visakhapatnam Steel Executive Association has urged immediate recruitment so that the plant can run at full capacity by mid-year.

Despite these problems, the commitment of RINL towards production and revenue generation proves that the workers are strong, even when there is no respite from problems.