Saturday, August 4, 2012

SAIL: ROURKELA

But looking beyond the lake at cand desolation around the old Tata township nearby, one can immediately seesigns of a new era and a new paradigm. Talk more to Badaik and you get a sense that what is happening here is a microcosm of how the public sector in India is coping with challenges of competition and a dramatically changed 21st century. By the early 1990s, when India had adopted liberal economic and trade policies, the very existence of SAIL was threatened. A virtual monopoly along with Tata Steel, SAIL had a free run of the Indian steel market for decades. And there was such a shortage of steel that ‘rationing’ was a more apt buzzword than marketing. But competition changed all that – and like SAIL, Rourkela faced a crisis of survival. Like SAIL, it implemented VRS schemes that cut through vast swathes of employees; and like SAIL, it implemented a tortuous plan of modernisation that went through many political, bureaucratic and other hurdles. Today, it is a 2 million ton steel plant with the latest technology and can look at the future with some amount of confidence.

The mines at Purunapani too have a saviour – a public private partnership that can once again transform the 60 metre lake into an operational mine again. After all, this place still holds much more than 50 million tons of limestone – a key raw material for cement plants. The company launched a public-private partnership whereby a 2 million ton cement plant could be set up with a 74% equity participation from a private sector player. Quite predictably, this plan hit a roadblock and there were huge protests about ‘selling off public property’ at throwaway prices to private capitalists. In reality, this was a war between private sector players who wanted access to the mines at the lowest possible cost. There was a PIL filed in the Orissa High Court. SAIL won that battle. The matter went to a central appellate tribunal. SAIL has won again. Now, mines manager Badaik is hopeful that this 26-74 joint venture to manufacture 2 million tons of cement will happen at least by 2014.

While traveling back from the mines, I was left wondering whether Minister Virbadhra Singh is really aware of challenges like Purunapani. By the way, the literal English translation of Purunapani is ‘Old Water’.



 
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