Shocked by the Orissa government?s decision to spike the company?s expansion plans, London-based Vedanta Resources chairman Anil Agarwal flew into Bhubaneswar over the weekend to try and resolve the issue.
Agarwal met Orissa chief minister Naveen Patnaik for two hours on Saturday, although he described it as a ?courtesy call? to congratulate the chief minister on his electoral success. But sources said the expansion plan was discussed in detail.
?We are working with the government and hopeful of resolving the issue,? Agarwal said. Sources in the chief minister?s office said Patnaik had laid down several conditions before considering Vedanta?s expansion proposals.
Patnaik has apparently asked Agarwal to collaborate with state-owned aluminium major Nalco to set up a metal park at Angul, as well as start a trauma & burn centre in Bhubaneswar as an extension to its 1,000-bed speciality hospital in Puri.
Vedanta Aluminium Ltd has already set up a 1-million tonne per annum (mtpa) alumina refinery at Lanjigarh in Kalahandi district, a 0.25-mtpa aluminium smelter and a 675-mw captive generating plant at Jharsuguda. It has proposed expanding the refinery capacity to 6 mtpa, the smelter capacity to 1.6 mtpa and power plant to 1,350 mw.
However, the state government?s single-window clearance authority rejected the proposal to expand the refinery, while allowing only a doubling of the capacity of the smelter to 0.50 mtpa.
Agarwal later told mediapersons that his projects in Orissa were on schedule. ?Despite the global slowdown, we will go ahead with our projects in Orissa,? he asserted. The chairman said bauxite mines for the Lanjigarh refinery would be operational by August.
He said the Vedanta Group would invest Rs 50,000 crore in Orissa, of which Rs 25,000 crore has already been ploughed into various projects in the state.
