Dr Muhammad Fakhr-e-Alam Irfan, federal secretary of Ministry of Industries and Production while briefing Senate Standing Committee on Industries and Production meeting revealed that the government has decided to permanently shut down Pakistan Steel Mills (PSM), a state-owned enterprise that has been incurring heavy losses since 2009.
There is no buyer of PSM in the market yet, the government is considering scrapping it and using the land for other purposes and the federal cabinet has also approved it. The government has decided to use the PSM land for establishing Export Promotion Zone/Industrial Zones.
During the meeting he also revealed that Sindh government will establish a new steel mill on an area of 700 acres of land while the rest of the land will remain the property of the PSM.
PSM which was established in 1974, but has been facing financial difficulties for the past decade. The volume of PSM employees’ annual salary is Rs3.1 billion and in the last 10 years, the government has paid Rs32 billion in salaries. Additionally, the mill has consumed Rs7 billion worth of gas in just the last decade.
During the meeting the panel was informed that the total value of PSM asset was Rs861 billion as of 2021 audit which included Rs2.12 billion moveable assets and Rs858 billion immoveable assets of which the total cost of the land stands at Rs622 billion.
