BHUBANESWAR | Nov 25, 2015: Vedanta Ltd on Tuesday said it would not close down its one million tonne per annum (mtpa) refinery at Lanjigarh since the state government has assured to sort out its raw material crisis.

"We will not shut down the plant as we are hopeful that the state government will help us meet our requirement of raw materials to run the plant," said chief executive officer (CEO) of Vedanta (Aluminium) Abhijit Pati, following a high-level meeting with chief secretary G C Pati.

The CEO said the plant requires at least 3 lakh metric tonne of bauxite ore per annum to run its refinery. "At present, the production capacity of the refinery has fallen by about 50% due to non-availability of adequate raw material," he added.

On August 25, Vedanta, which has been struggling for around 10 years to arrange raw material, had announced to shut down its refinery in a phased manner. At present, the plant is operating on a daily loss of Rs 3 crores. The plant generates employment opportunities for around 10,000 people in Kalahandi district. Earlier, in December 2012, the company had temporarily shut down its plant due to lack of raw material. After a closure of around seven months, the plant was reopened in July 2013. After that, the company was running its refinery at Lanjigarh by sourcing bauxite from Gujarat and Chhattisgarh, official sources said.

Vedanta faced a jolt after rejection of its bid to mine the bauxite reserve at the ecologically sensitive Niyamgiri Hill, home to the particularly vulnerable Dongaria Kondhs as the gram sabhas held to decide the mining project had rejected the mining plan.

State steel and mines minister Prafulla Mallik said the state government has applied for a mining lease of Kodingamali bauxite reserve in Rayagada district in favour of the Odisha Mining Corporation (OMC). "We hope to get the mining lease very soon. Through the OMC, we will facilitate long term ore linkage to Vedanta," he added.

The minister also said that the OMC has applied for prospecting license of Sasubohumali and Karlapat bauxite mines, which would further resolve the bauxite requirement of aluminium plants in the state.

(Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/)