EDITORIALS
The ‘Public’ within and beyond the Enterprise
The protests opposing the privatisation of the Vizag Steel Plant challenge the dilution of the “public sector.”
T
he Prime Minister, in a recent speech, said that the gov-
ernment has no business to be in business, as he pushed
for the central government’s proposal to privatise public
sector units (PSUs), claiming that loss-making PSUs are a drain
on taxpayers’ money. According to him, disinvestment will ensure
money that can be put to public use, along with bringing
increased efficiency from the private sector. The private, in its
industriousness and wisdom, is seen to trump any notion of the
“public” as an economic actor; the recent farmers’ protests
have somewhat blunted this claim. Meanwhile, another emerg-
ing arena is further challenging this dogma of “privatisation.”
The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) has given
in-principle approval to 100% disinvestment of Rashtriya Ispat
Nigam Limited (RINL), the corporate entity of the Vizag Steel
Plant (VSP). The Visakha Ukku Parirakshana Porata Committee,
a joint action committee (JAC) of trade unions and employees
of the plant, have been protesting for over a month, demanding
an immediate withdrawal of the proposal for privatisation of
the plant. Apart from support from political parties, including
leaders from the ruling dispensation at the centre, the Andhra
Pradesh chief minister has come out in support of the protests.
The JAC hopes to intensify the struggle over the coming days,
hoping to replicate the intensity of the farmers’ protests. VSP,
which directly employs close to 18,000 workers, and indirectly
many more, is considered a major driver of economic develop-
ment in the area. As the protests around India’s first integrated
coastal steel plant intensify, a deeper examination of the
notion of the public enterprise is taking shape.
The VSP, commissioned in 1992, emerged from a long and
protracted history of protests and delays, three decades
after a United States (US) study team found the land around
Visakhapatnam suitable for a steel plant. Protests demanding a
steel plant in the region in 1966 saw 32 protestors killed in police
firing across the state. This history appears to find currency in
the language of the JAC. A deeper connection to the Andhra
identity and pride is invoked. “Publicness” as opposed to “private”
pulls is used by the workers’ protest to define the essence of the
Andhra identity as well as underscore the normative basis of the
centre–state relationship. More importantly, the protests point
at how this pride is tied to the “public nature” of the plant, and
the claim to resist privatisation is deeply linked to this sense of
“public ownership.” In fact, ironically, as a response to the state
governments’ appeal to the centre to withdraw privatisation, a
union minister suggested that the state government take over
operations. Citizens of Visakhapatnam have taken out rallies in
8 march 20, 2021
support of the protests, as protests in different towns across
the state intensify to save the plant from privatisation.
While at different times, the union government has considered
proposals to merge the RINL with the Steel Authority of India
Limited (SAIL) or the National Mineral Development Corpora-
tion (NMDC), the union minister for steel in February 2020 in a
written reply to a question in Parliament had stated that South
Korea-based POSCO had shown interest in setting up a steel
plant with 50% partnership with VSP on RINL land. This propos-
al is seen as a betrayal of trust, triggering a common memory and
reminding the public of the 20,000 acre land acquired to build
the plant, displacing over 19,000 families from 64 villages. This
memory appears to deepen the engagement with the land and
evoke a collective claim to its use.
By 2000–01, the RINL accumulated losses to the tune of
`4,987 crore, and was reported to the Board of Industrial and
Financial Reconstruction (BIFR) as a potential sick company.
However, subsequently, it saw a remarkable turn in its fortunes,
as it reduced operating costs and with increasing yields began
making profits, wiping out its accumulated losses by 2005–06.
Conferred Navratna status in 2010, the RINL began incurring
losses again, from 2015, except for 2018–19. The parliamentary
committee on steel has suggested that the lack of a captive mine
and dependence on external sources for raw materials is one
reason for these losses. While the JAC has pointed this out, and
demanded dedicated captive mines, this demand may point at a
unique moment. Captive mines invoke a trail of environmental
degradation and displacement, as has been evident from the
NMDC’s Bailadila iron ore complex, which is also the largest
supplier of iron ore to the RINL. The demand for captive mines,
undeniably, reveals the other end of the spectrum of the “public.”
Does the invocation of the “public” interest have the scope and
breadth to imagine the Adivasis, whose saga of displacement
and unemployment is closely tied to the story at the VSP?
While the protests intensify, the denial of the “public” by the
centre leads to increased popular resistance. This resistance, as it
spreads across different industries, points at a reimagination of the
public sector as the necessary rallying point, both for industry and
the well-being of those who depend on such public enterprises.
By invoking employment and welfare as political categories
worthy of contestation, it provides a space to lay claim to a
thinking as to how factory lands should be used, or how profits
must be restored. It is treading the thin lines that come to define
what industry means to whom, and how far we can take our
political imagination to restore a deeper faith in the “public.”
vol lVI no 12 EPW Economic & Political Weekly