Bokaro Steel Plant operations were disrupted on Saturday after displaced persons seeking jobs blocked all entry gates, stopping employees from reaching incoming shifts and prompting officials to estimate a production loss of around Rs 30 crore a day.
A production report prepared at about 2.30 pm said the plant’s blast furnaces, sinter plant and two steel melting shops had stopped functioning. The disruption followed an escalation of the agitation by displaced persons under the banner of the Visthapit Apprentice Sangh.
The blockade also created shortages for employees who remained inside the plant. Bokaro Steel Plant said workers who had been in the facility for more than 18 hours were facing shortages of food and drinking water. BSL and its parent company, Steel Authority of India Ltd, urged the state administration to restore access through the gates.
The protest is linked to demands for employment for people displaced by the steel plant project. An indefinite hunger strike led by Bokaro MLA Shwettaa Singh at Two Tank Garden, near the BSL headquarters, entered its eighth day on Saturday. Singh said the blockade would continue until the protesters’ demands were met.
Talks between the protesters and senior BSL officials, including director in-charge Priya Ranjan and executive director Rajshree Banerjee, failed at a meeting held at the Circuit House. Bokaro deputy commissioner Ajay Nath Jha and Chas sub-divisional magistrate Pranjal Dhanda also attended the meeting.
Jharkhand State Youth Commission chairperson Kumar Gaurav said BSL officials had proposed forming a committee. The protesters rejected the proposal, arguing that committees formed earlier had failed to resolve the employment dispute. They instead insisted that displaced persons be provided jobs.
The issue has drawn support from several political representatives. Finance minister Radha Krishana Kishore said BSL management should frame a policy to provide employment to displaced persons. Kishore, Gaurav and Jharkhand Congress president Keshav Mahto Kamlesh joined the dharna for a few hours. Dumri MLA and JLKM chief Jairam Mahto, BJP Dhanbad MP Dulu Mahato and Congress workers also extended support to the agitation.
Protester Sunil Kumar said displaced youths had been receiving assurances for nearly one and a half years, while several apprenticeship trainees were still awaiting employment. He said the uncertainty was affecting their families financially.
The immediate dispute places a major industrial facility and its workforce at the centre of a wider conflict over how employment obligations to displaced communities are defined and implemented. The administration and BSL had not announced a resolution by Saturday evening, while the protesters said the gate blockade would continue.
