Vedanta Alumina Ltd. (VAL) has decided to shut down its one million tonne per annum alumina refinery at Lanjigarh in Kalahandi district in Odisha from Wednesday.
“Despite our concerted efforts over the past three months to ensure sustainable supplies of bauxite for our Lanjigarh refinery, we have not been able to find any solution.
“For the last three days, we have run the unit at around 20 per cent capacity and on December 5, we have been forced to close down the unit,” VAL CEO Mukesh Kumar said here on Tuesday.
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Mr. Kumar said, “We have been struggling to source bauxite from Gujarat. Since election has been declared in the State, it cannot come out with open tender. The already mined out bauxite in that State is being exported. Similarly, bauxite reserve is very scarce in Maharashtra. ”
Mr. Kumar, however, said the company would not retrench its employees now.
The closure is expected to affect around 7,000 people engaged directly or indirectly with the plant, a VAL source said.
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