Vizag Steel focusing on Waterways for Logistics over Rail to transport Steel to Vijayawada and other parts of South India

Vizag Steel to touch record 5-mn tonnes production this fiscal. Despite this target, Railways is unable to tap the potential of diverting the traffic from Seaways and Roadways.

VISAKHAPATNAM: The Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited – Visakhapatnam Steel Plant (VSP) for the first time is going to touch the five million tonnes production mark by the end of the current fiscal year, said its Chairman and Managing Director P. Madhusudan here.

However, Railways would be loosing the opportunity to transport steel by Railways. Mr. Madhusudan said the VSP was focusing on waterways for logistics aggressively rather than the railways and roadways would be used to transport steel to Vijayawada.

After a dealers’ meet, Mr. Madhusudan told media the Vijayawada branch had registered a considerable growth with sales of 1.40 lakh tonnes against 35,000 tonnes in the last fiscal. The Amaravati and Vijayawada region emerged important and a sale of two lakh tonnes steel was expected in the next year, he added.

About the overall production, he said after increasing the production capacity from 3 million tonnes to 6.3 million tonnes, the plant had almost reached 5 million tonnes.

Also, the sales turnover was going to cross ₹16,000-crore mark for the first time registering a growth of 35%.

“In the coming fiscal year, the plant’s capacity and production are going to increase by one million tonnes and about 1.3 million tonnes respectively and will reflect in the production of more than 7 million tonnes,” Mr. Madhusudan said.

Globally the steel market had been dull in the last three to four years and this year we could see recovery signals during the past four months and the demand would go up, he said.

“This year the plant registered an EBITDA margin (operating margin) of about ₹200 crore which is ₹400 crore more than the last year’s margin of ₹200 crore.

New branch in Guwahati

To explore the markets in the northeast, “We will open a branch in Guwahati and start sales outlets. Also we are trying to reach out to customers there using government’s e-platforms.”