The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science and Technology, Environment and Forests, headed by T. Subbarami Reddy, visited Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited-Visakhapatnam Steel Plant on Wednesday. RINL Chairman-cum-Managing Director A.P. Choudhary and others extended a warm welcome to Mr. Reddy and other members of the committee. The committee visited the model room and various new facilities in the expansion area.

The committee members, who visited the plant included Saman Pathak, Jabir Husain, Barun Mukherjee, Ninog Ering, Kamla Devi Patie, Abdul Rahman, Gajendra Singh Rajukhedi, Anup Kumar Saha, Pradeep Tamta and Ranjan Prasad Yadav, and other officials from the Ministry on Environment and Forests and Parliament Secretariat. Later, the committee reviewed the environmental measures being taken by HPCL and NTPC Simhadri and held separate discussion with the officials concerned.

At VSP, Mr. Choudhary explained the facilities incorporated, the technology adopted, and the initiatives being taken with regard to environment in the plant. After visiting the plant, Mr. Reddy expressed his satisfaction over lush-greenery around the plant and steps being taken to prevent pollution. He also had a word of praise for environment protection measures during the expansion project. Mr. Reddy said VSP was one of the best in the industry with respect to energy and water consumption, waste heat recovery and sticking to environment related parameters.

RINL officials explained that the company was incurring additional cost for lacking captive iron ore mines and requested Mr. Reddy and other committee members to expedite the applications pending with various State governments. Mr. Reddy and members positively responded and assured that they would use their good office for early allotment of captive mines.

RINL Directors Umesh Chandra (operations), P. Madhusudan (finance), T.K. Chand (commercial), Y.R. Reddy (personnel), senior officials and union leaders attended.