29 firms file bids for Vizag Steel Plant, Telangana stays away

Visakhapatnam: As many as 29 companies, including seven international players, have submitted bids for supply of raw materials and providing working capital to Visakhapatnam Steel Plant The deadline for filing of Expression of Interest (EoI) invited by the Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd (RINL), the corporate entity of Visakhapatnam Steel Plant (VSP), ended Thursday.
The Telangana government, which had sent a team of Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL) last week to VSP to study the feasibility of filing EoI, stayed away from the process.
Sources in the VSP said both Telangana and Andhra Pradesh governments showed no interest in filing bids for the EoI.
Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao had sent a team of SCCL officials to the VSP to study the feasibility and the move had triggered curiosity in political circles.
While employees of the VSP, who have been protesting against the Centre’s decision to privatise the public sector undertaking, had welcomed the move, Andhra Pradesh’s ruling party YSR Congress had criticised the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) government of adopting double standards on the issue.