After making a lot of hungama and planting reports in the media for three consecutive days, the Telangana government quietly opted out of bidding for expression of interest in supplying raw material or providing working capital for the Visakhapatnam Steel Plant.
As the bidding closed at 3 pm on Saturday, as many as 22 companies submitted their bids for the Expression of Interest in supplying raw material to the steel plant, besides providing working capital.
But the Bharat Rashtra Samithi government did not take part in the bidding at all. However, the RINL management announced extension of date for submission of bids till April 20.
“Some more big companies are evincing interest in the deal and sought some more time. Hence, the date has been extended to April 20,” an official said.
But the question is why the BRS government, which garnered so much publicity in the media stating that it was taking part in the bidding for supplying raw material to the Vizag steel plant through state-run Singareni Collieries Company Ltd or through Telangana State Mineral Development Corporation, did not submit its bid.
In fact, the Telangana government sent a team of officials from Singareni to visit the Vizag Steel Plant on Wednesday and Thursday and hold discussions with the RINL management and also trade unions to study the feasibility of bidding for the raw material supply.
“But by the time of closure of deadline, there was no communication from the Telangana government, for the reasons known only to the chief minister. In any case, it got enough publicity in the media,” a source said.
Now the latest talk is that the Telangana government might take a decision in a couple of days as the deadline has been extended till April 20,” sources added.
