Last Friday (8.23), India's VISA Steel announced a complete shutdown of its comprehensive steel plant in Odisha, with an annual capacity of 1.5 million tons.

 This comprehensive steel plant is located in Kalinga Nagar area, including a blast furnace with an annual output of 225,000 tons, a sponge iron plant with an annual output of 500,000 tons, and a steel plant with an annual output of 500,000 tons. In addition, there is a chromium-iron alloy plant with an annual output of 150,000 tons, with a total of more than 3200 employees.

 The steel plant also has two sets of direct reduction iron (DRI) production equipment, five sets of ferrochromium alloy production equipment, a power plant, a steelmaking workshop and a hot rolling mill. Three groups of ferrochromium production equipment, steelmaking workshop, hot rolling mill, power plant and small blast furnace have been shut down earlier, leaving only two groups of ferrochromium production equipment in operation.

 A key member of the Workers'Federation of VISA Iron and Steel Company said: "The company has terminated the labor contract with 350 employees of ferrochromium alloy plant. With the other two sets of ferrochrome equipment shut down, the entire steel plant equipment has been shut down. The whereabouts of the remaining nearly 3,000 employees remain unknown.