Paswan unfolds gifts for BSP employees

Steel Minister Ram Vilas Paswan unfolded a plethora of gifts for the employees of the BSP""the flagship entity of the Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL)""that completed 50 years of operation. The first metal flowed out of the blast furnace in BSP on February 4, 1959.

"The plants did not witness even a symbolic protest or a bandh even for five minutes in its 50 years of operation. It is yet another record of BSP employees," Paswan said while addressing a gathering in Bhilai yesterday evening after laying the foundation stone for Rs 11262-crore expansion and modernisation plan.

The expansion and modernisation plan of Bhilai will enhance the Plant's hot metal capacity from 4.08 to 7.5 MT while the crude steel capacity will go up to 7 MT from 3.92 MT. The saleable steel capacity will go up from 3.15 MT to 6.53 MT.

Paswan announced that the workers will be given a 10-gram gold coin and a cash incentive of Rs 2000 each. About 32,000 employees of the BSP will get the benefits.

Besides the incentives, the minister also announced the house lease scheme for the employees. "I am making this announcement (house lease scheme) by going out of way," Paswan said.

This would be the sixth phase of scheme that would enable the employees to get a house/quarter in the township on lease. In the last five phases, about 4500 employees have taken the benefits of the scheme. In the sixth phases, about 10,000 employees are expected to become the owner of the house.

The minister also gave its consent to abolish the compulsion of written tests for promotion by amending the policy. This would pave way for more than 1000 employees in the BSP to become executives.