In regard the issue of Bayyaram iron ore mines allotment to Visakhapatnam Steel Plant, Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) President, K Chandrasekhar Rao, said he would soon meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to ensure that the ore is used within Telangana.
During a press conference, Rao said that “The state government is conspiring to take the ore from Telangana to VSP. We won’t let this happen. I will take a delegation to the PM and urge that an integrated steel plant be set up in Khammam or Warangal with a condition that the ore extracted in Telangana must be completely dedicated to this plant.” The row began after Chief Minister (CM), N Kiran Kumar Reddy, announced on April 17 that the state government had given in-principle approval to VSP – an ancillary unit of Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited a PSU giant to mine the ore in 2,500ha at Bayyaram in Khammam, 2,500ha at Guduru in Warangal, and 342ha at Bheemadevapuram in Karimnagar.
The TRS chief said his party wants a steel plant in Khammam as it would provide jobs for locals. He added “There are some 35,000 employees in VSP and just a few hundred people from Telangana are among them. Now that they are planning to extract ore from Telangana, we want that it should create jobs for people of the region.”