Visakha Steel Plant Gains New Strength With NDA Support

The Visakhapatnam Steel Plant, which was built with the slogan “Visakha Ukku, Andhrula Hakku” is now moving from crisis toward real progress. The NDA governments at the Centre and in Andhra Pradesh have given the plant strong support, stopping all privatization talk and focusing fully on strengthening it.

In the last 17 months, the Centre and the state together extended almost ₹15,000 crore to support the plant. No other public sector company in the country has ever received such a level of financial assistance.

The Centre has given ₹11,440 crore, while the Andhra Pradesh government contributed nearly ₹3,000 crore. This joint support helped the plant, which was once in huge losses, recover steadily.

Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu and Deputy Chief Minister Pawan Kalyan regularly followed up with the Union government. Chandrababu met the Union Steel Minister many times and ensured that the plant received financial help instead of being pushed toward privatization.

In 2024, the Centre released ₹500 crore as equity and ₹1,140 crore as working capital advance. This helped restart the second blast furnace in October 2024 and pushed capacity utilization from 48 percent to 67 percent. Later, after more consultations, the Centre released another ₹9,800 crore. The earlier ₹1,140 crore loan was also converted into preference share capital. With these steps, the plant’s capacity utilization touched 80 percent by October this year. The plant is now producing around 16,322 tonnes of hot metal each day.

The livelihoods of nearly 28,000 employees, including 13,000 regular and 15,000 contract workers, are being protected. When coal shortages arose, the state government ensured uninterrupted supply from Gangavaram Port. The state decided that steel for its projects will be purchased from VSP to boost its operations. Despite old bills, electricity and water supply were never stopped. The ₹2,400 crore pending electricity dues were converted into equity with the Eastern Power Distribution Company, giving long term relief.

Chandrababu Naidu had also helped save the plant 25 years ago during the Vajpayee era by securing nearly ₹2,800 crore. Today too, the NDA governments are standing by Visakha Steel. The ruling coalition says that false political propaganda is being spread by some groups, but the truth is that VSP is being strengthened and will continue to progress with the support it is now receiving.