Vedanta Alumina Ltd shuts down Lanjigarh Refinery

Due to shortage of Bauxite raw material, Vedanta Aluminium Ltd (VAL) on Saturday announced a temporary shutdown of its refinery plant at Lanjigarh in Kalahandi district. Simultaneously, its captive power plant generating 75 MW has also been shut down. The unit is operational for seven years. The closure of the refinery would hit the livelihood of about 6,500 people, including 550 employed directly, 5,000 engaged indirectly and 1,000 self-employed in and around the plant.

The BJD government in Odisha, which has been accused of showing favours to the company, has not been able to do much to meet the raw material shortage. The company has invested around Rs 45,000 crore in Odisha.

“The company requires 10,000 MT of bauxite everyday to operate its 1 mtpa capacity. The company was running the refinery by utilising only 35 to 40 per cent of its capacity. We had earlier planned to shut down the refinery on December 5. The situation did not permit us to continue operation without raw material support,” VAL Chief Operating Officer Mukesh Kumar said.

The company had received a jolt after the Union ministry of environment and forest rejected the proposal to mine bauxite from the Niyamgiri hills in 2010. It has been procuring bauxite from Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Gujarat.

“Mines in Jharkhand and Andhra Pradesh are lying closed. It is not possible to get bauxite from Chhattisgarh and Gujarat because of legal problems. The ministry of environment and forest has not come to our rescue,” said Kumar.