Union Minister for Steel and Heavy Industries H. D. Kumaraswamy arrived in Visakhapatnam around 1 a.m. on Tuesday (June 9, 2026) to review the situation after an accident at the Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (RINL) Visakhapatnam steel plant that killed eight workers and injured six others.

On arrival, Mr. Kumaraswamy held discussions with senior RINL management and local officials to assess the accident and the relief work under way.

He later visited KIMS Hospital at Sheelanagar, where the injured are being treated, asked about their condition and directed the hospital to give them the best care.

Mr. Kumaraswamy offered condolences to the families of the dead, and said the government would stand by the affected families.

“The safety and welfare of our workers in the steel sector remain paramount. We are ensuring a thorough investigation and will take all necessary steps to strengthen safety protocols across our operations to prevent such incidents in the future,” he said.

Relief and rehabilitation

Mr. Kumaraswamy announced ex-gratia of ₹25 lakh for the next of kin of each worker killed, in addition to their admissible terminal benefits. The Ministry also promised a permanent job to one eligible member of each family.

For the six injured workers, he announced ₹10 lakh each, and said RINL would meet all their medical expenses.

The company would also support the education of the children of the dead and the injured, and continue welfare and rehabilitation help for the families.

Independent inquiry

RINL has begun an internal inquiry into the technical failure. The Ministry of Steel has set up a three-member independent inquiry committee headed by the Director-in-Charge of SAIL’s Bokaro Steel Plant. The committee will find the exact cause of the accident and recommend steps to improve safety at the plant.

Incident background

The accident occurred around 4.15 p.m. on Monday (June 8, 2026), during operations at Caster-2 of Steel Melt Shop-1. Preliminary reports indicate that, as workers were preparing to pour hot crude steel from a ladle into the tundish, a severe explosion occurred before the slide gate could be opened. The blast set off a fire that engulfed Overhead Crane-2, causing the deaths and injuries. The molten steel, at over 1,500°C, made the rescue very difficult.

Members of the Visakha Auto Rickshaw Karmika Sangam (Workers’ Union), affiliated to the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), staged a protest rally in Visakhapatnam on Tuesday (May 19, 2026), demanding a rollback of the recent hike in petrol and diesel prices and the provision of fuel at subsidised rates for autorickshaw drivers.

The rally began at Jagadamba junction and proceeded to a nearby petrol bunk, where protesters conveyed their demands before returning to the starting point. The protest is part of a wider Statewide agitation being conducted along with the All India Road Transport Workers’ Federation (AIRTWF) and CITU.

Speaking to The Hindu, District General Secretary K. Satyanarayana said the fuel price hike had dealt a severe blow to autorickshaw drivers, who, he argued, formed an integral part of the public transport network. “We are the ones who have been involved in public transport on par with RTC. It is a burden for the common man travelling on two-wheelers and cars, but it becomes a bigger burden for auto drivers,” he said.

He alleged that the central government had abdicated its responsibility by leaving pricing decisions to oil companies, without prior discussion or parliamentary debate. “Prices were not increased till the election, and once they were done, the central government increased the prices,” he said, urging the State government to step in and push for a rollback.

Mr. Satyanarayana said autorickshaw drivers were already struggling from the loss of passenger traffic following the State government’s free bus service for women, and that many could not earn even ₹300 a day. He added that RTO officials reviving old pending cases and recovering dues were compounding their distress.

Union President K. Ganesh said the hike had cascading effects on the prices of essential commodities, hurting consumers across the board. The union submitted a formal demand for subsidised fuel rates for autorickshaw drivers. Union leader K.V. Ramana Reddy and others took part in the rally.

The National Apex Committee (NAC) of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) has given in-principle approval to three major proposals for Visakhapatnam’s development, with a total outlay of ₹1,501.03 crore.

The projects were cleared under the Urban Challenge Fund (UCF) at a meeting in New Delhi, Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation (GVMC) Commissioner Ketan Garg told The Hindu on Wednesday (May 13, 2026).

Madhurawada gets the lion’s share

The largest share of the investment is going to the Madhurawada growth corridor, with ₹725.18 crore for a 24/7 smart water supply system and ₹658.61 crore for an underground drainage (UGD) network. These projects include a 65 MLD water treatment plant and a 20 MLD sewage treatment plant using Sequential Batch Reactor (SBR) technology.

City-wide automation against water losses

A third project, valued at ₹117.24 crore, focuses on the automation of bulk and semi-bulk water metering across Visakhapatnam. By integrating Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA)-based systems and installing over 7,800 meters, the GVMC aims to improve billing accuracy, monitor production nodes in real time and reduce non-revenue water (NRW) leakages.

Blended finance model

The portfolio is structured under a blended finance model, combining a 25% Government of India (GoI) grant via the UCF (₹375.26 crore) with multilateral financing from the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and domestic bank lending from Canara Bank and Indian Overseas Bank (IOB).

GVMC Commissioner Ketan Garg said, “The sanction was made as a resounding endorsement of the city’s commitment to evidence-based and fiscally responsible infrastructure planning.”

Four employees of the Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (RINL), the corporate entity of the Visakhapatnam Steel Plant, were hospitalised late on Monday (May 11, 2026) night following a gas leak at Blast Furnace-1.

The incident occurred during the third shift when a technical snag led to the emission of carbon monoxide. The affected personnel, identified as Susmith, Yadav, M. Venkateswara Rao and Ramaraju, fell unconscious at the site after inhaling the toxic fumes.

Alert colleagues promptly intervened, manually isolating the gas supply and evacuating the victims from the furnace area. The injured were initially rushed to the Visakha Steel General Hospital within the township.

Three of the workers were treated at the plant hospital and discharged later, while the remaining one was subsequently shifted to a private super-speciality hospital in the city for advanced respiratory care, Steel Plant officials said on Tuesday morning.

The officials confirmed that the incident had taken place and all four were in stable condition. “No casualties or major injuries have been reported,” they said.

The incident has once again brought industrial safety protocols at the public sector major under scrutiny.

Trade union leaders and representatives of the Steel Plant Employees’ Union visited the injured and alleged that declining maintenance standards and manpower shortages in critical departments were contributing to frequent technical mishaps. They have called on the management to conduct a high-level technical audit of the infrastructure to prevent such recurrences.

RINL officials said an internal committee had been constituted to probe the exact cause of the leak. Preliminary findings suggested a pressure fluctuation in the gas cleaning plant circuit might have caused the emission. The management clarified that the incident was confined to the furnace’s internal gas recovery system.

A 23-year-old woman died by suicide at her residence here on Sunday (May 10, 2026), 45 days after her marriage, allegedly following dowry harassment and her husband’s extramarital affairs, the police said on Monday.

The deceased, a native of Srikakulam district, had married Roppa Someswara Rao about six weeks ago. Mr. Someswara Rao, also from Srikakulam, has been running a ladies’ hostel in Visakhapatnam for some time, the police said.

According to preliminary police investigations and statements from the victim’s family, the marriage was reportedly strained over Mr. Someswara Rao’s alleged extramarital affairs with residents of the hostel. The woman confronted her husband about these relationships, after which he allegedly subjected her to physical and mental torture.

The woman had recently reached out to her parents in Srikakulam to express her distress. Her mother reportedly advised her to be patient, suggesting that such adjustments were common in the early stages of a new marriage, sources said.

She took her life on Sunday. The Three-Town Police, on receiving information, shifted the body for post-mortem examination.

Based on a complaint filed by her parents, the police have registered a case against Mr. Someswara Rao under relevant sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS).

“The accused has been taken into custody and subsequently sent to remand,” a senior police official told The Hindu.

Further investigation into the case is underway, he added.

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