The SAIL,management is planning to take stern actions against those who participated in a strike demanding pay revision on Wednesday that crippled production at Bokaro Steel Plant for almost 24 hours.

The strike, called by 12 trade unions jointly demanding pay revision, incurred a huge loss to the steel major. Though the production and revenue loss has not been declared officially by management, but sources at key positions confirmed that BSL suffered a production loss of around 6500 tonnes of crude steel. In terms of revenue, the loss faced by the company is about Rs 40 crore.

BSL spokesperson, Manikant Dhan said that the loss is being assessed by the management.

Of the five steel plants of Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL), BSL suffered the maximum jolt as the workers not only refrained from work, but also disrupted work at critical production zones like Blast Furnace and Steel Melting Shop. There is an indication that SAIL management is going to take major action against the furious employees involved in the strike.

Apart from the production and revenue loss at the BSL, the blast furnace incident has shaken the management. The BSL management has sent a special report related to the strike as well as the blast furnace incident to SAIL Headquarters, said sources.

About two dozen employees are under scanner in blast furnace incident where the railway tracks through which hot metals were carried to other units were blocked for more than 4 hours. The situation in Blast Furnace had aggravated to an extent where there was a possibility of occurrence of any untoward incident, with pressure on the pipelines supplying gas to blast furnace and coke ovens.

The agitators attempted to shut down the Blast Furnaces, an issue taken seriously by the SAIL management.

Despite persuasion by BSL's ED Works and senior officials, the agitators did not leave the track. BSL's in-charge director Amarendu Prakash had to seek cooperation from the district administration. Knowing the seriousness of the situation, SDO, Chas, Shashi Prakash Singh himself reached the blast furnace and asked agitators to leave the track in half an hour. Shortly after that, the CISF removed the employees from there.