 "Capacity utilisation falls for RINL, JSW Steel and JSPL")
Senior Congress member Motilal Vohra in Rajya Sabha today said 185 mini-steel plants in Chhattisgarh were facing problems due to shortage of raw material and rising power tariff.
Raising the issue during the Zero Hour, he said the steel plants provided jobs to over 50,000 people.
While the Bharatiya Janata Party government in the state was not facilitating supply of raw material to the mini-steel plants, it was increasing power tariff.
Vohra accused the state government of not taking any concrete step to promote the industry in the past 16 years.
K K Ragesh, from the Communist Party of India (Marxist), or CPI(M), said that in a "retrograde step", the Union Labour Ministry has denotified 226 depots of Food Corporation of India "so as to bring back labour contract system".
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It is the responsibility of the Labour Ministry to ensure that all labour laws are implemented properly, including abolition of contract labour, he added.
Ahmed Hassan, from the Trinamool Congress, said Alliance Air, a subsidiary of Air India, has drastically reduced its services in the North East. He said that earlier the airline was operating 65 flights a week, but now there are apprehensions that the services may be closed down.
Tapan Kumar Sen also, from the CPI(M), demanded that services of Alliance Air should be restored.
Congress' Ronal Sapa Tlau talked about accidents on highways in 10 hilly states of the country.
He suggested that the central government should ask hilly states to identify the landslide prone areas and demanded more budget for these roads. The mechanical division of the PWD should immediately deploy their machines, he suggested.
