While an official inquiry has been ordered into the fatal explosion at the Visakhapatnam Steel Plant on Monday that claimed eight lives, steel plant safety experts and former employees point toward potential mechanical and material quality failures.
“Ladles are lined with heavy refractory bricks to withstand the heat. If the lining thins or develops cracks, the molten steel cuts through the outer steel shell — a phenomenon known as a ‘ladle breakout.’ A similar breakout led to a fatal accident at the Bhushan Steel Plant in Odisha in 2013,” observed a retired senior safety official from the plant.
Furthermore, operational lapses within the Continuous Casting Department (CCD) unit have been raised by some veteran staff.
Sheikh Masthan, a recently retired CCD employee with 35 years of experience at the VSP, alleged that cost-cutting measures directly compromised safety protocols.
“The liquid steel requires crucial ferro-elements like manganese and iron ore to be mixed thoroughly with argon gas before casting. I strongly suspect that the use of substandard raw materials to cut costs caused an uncontrollable reaction inside the container,” Mr. Masthan told The Hindu. The absence of a mandatory safety cover on top of the ladle significantly escalated the severity of the blast, he added.
“Had the cover been in place, the molten metal would not have scattered so widely across the machine area,” he said.
The fatal accident has reignited the fierce ongoing debate surrounding the plant’s operational safety standards. Ever since the Centre cleared the 100% strategic disinvestment of RINL in February 2021, central trade unions have aggressively linked a perceived drop in safety protocols to the financial crunch hitting the public sector unit.
Leaders from the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), including district general secretary R.K.S.V. Kumar and president K.M. Srinivasa Rao, accused the management of structural neglect. They alleged that capital starvation due to the impending privatisation has resulted in a dangerous reliance on outdated machinery, skipped maintenance cycles, and a massive influx of inexperienced contract labourers in hazardous zones.
CITU has demanded an immediate high-level judicial inquiry into explosion, a rigorous audit of raw material quality checks, and an ex gratia of ₹5 crore for the families of each deceased worker.
Mantri Rajsekhar of INTUC and Ayodhya Ram of CITU, expressed a similar opinion.
Published – June 08, 2026 10:52 pm IST
