The sale information of the Visakhapatnam steel plant is shrouded in mystery, with the Central government being tight-lipped about everything related to the sale aspect of the plant. However, people are eager to know about the deal, and many are questioning why the sale is shrouded in such mystery. What’s the most that will happen if the details are revealed, the people will know about it.
The Central government, though, doesn’t seem to feel that way. The Centre said that revealing the details of the sale would jeopardize India’s international relations and that there would be negative effects on the strategic, scientific and economic interests of the country. Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy and opposition leader Chandrababu Naidu wrote letters to Prime Minister Modi, on stalling the privatisation of the steel plant. These letters were forwarded to the concerned department, and it was announced that necessary actions were ordered to be taken.
What these actions are, and if any actions were taken in the first place, is something that hasn’t been announced to date. Inaganti Ravikumar invoked the Right to Information Act in this case, but the Centre hasn’t responded, once again citing absurd explanations. Whatever answers anyone seeks on the sale of the steel plant have to come from the Centre only, and for that, the RTI act has to be invoked, which the Centre is deflecting stating something or the other, narrowing any scope for any information to be known.
For whatever reasons, the Centre seems to be hell-bent on selling the steel plant, and debts are being cited as one of the reasons for this. Fact is, all the lands of the steel plant are more than enough to compensate for these debts, so selling the plant is a very dubious choice.