The steering committee will co-ordinate the activities of the two companies, the boards of which do not meet frequently.

Headed by the chairman of the AV Birla group, Kumar Mangalam Birla, the other members of the steering committee are SK Tamotia, Hindalco's president and whole-time director and Indal's vice-chairman A Agarwala, Indal's managing director for operations NK Choudhary, RK Kasliwal and Indal's youngest board member and president for corporate human resources of the group, Santrupt Mishra.

"Hindalco and Indal complement each other. Indal is the leading player in alumina and downstream aluminium products, while Hindalco is unmatchable in metals and enjoys a strong position in alumina and downstream facilities," Tamotia said.

Hindalco, which accounts for over 40 per cent of the country's total aluminium production capacity, has a 450,000 tonne per annum (tpa) capacity alumina refinery, a 242,000 tpa aluminium smelter coupled with facilities for the production of semi-fabricated products (133,7000 tpa). It also owns bauxite mines near its plants at Renukut in Uttar Pradesh.

It also has the 575mw Renusagar power plant and a 37mw co-generation unit at Renukut.

Indal, on the other hand, has three aluminium smelting units at Alupuram in Kerala, Belgaum in Karnataka and Hirakud in Orissa. It owns two sheet rolling mills at Belur in West Bengal and Taloja in Maharashtra, a foil plant at Kalwa in Maharashtra, alumina refining units at Muri in Bihar and Belgaum, and bauxite mines at Lohardaga in Bihar and Durgmadwadi in Maharashtra.

"We aim to leverage their collective competitive strength that stems from such a convergence," he added.

He believes that these are achievable through co-coordinating various functions and tasks, homogenising systems and procedures, integrating logistics, cost optimisation, product rationalisation and marketing and manufacturing strategies.

As this was a priority area, various task forces were to be constituted to ensure quick integration of processes and systems, Tamotia said.

"This structural arrangement gives us the benefit of a merger without the cumbersome baggage that a merger entails," said Mishra.

According to Choudhary, Indal will have new opportunities for growth and expansion from this arrangement.