Bizodisha Bureau, Bhubaneswar, July 22, 2015 : There is something to cheer for Vedanta Ltd which is struggling for access to key raw material bauxite for its underutilized alumina refinery at Lanjigarh in Oidsha’s backward Kalahandi district if the state steel and mines minister, Prafulla Mallick is to be believed.

The minster on Wednesday said here that the government plans to excavate bauxite from Kalarapat mines soon and supply bauxite mined through the state owned Odisha Mining Corporation [OMC] to Vedanta’s refinery.

OMC had signed an agreement with Vedanta Group to supply bauxite from Niyamgiri, which however, fell flat due to regulatory and environment regulations coupled with local protests. In fact, the whole issue was politicized with Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi siding with the local indigenous Dongria Kondhs protesting against mining of bauxite.

‘It is unfortunate that having set up a refinery plant at a cost of Rs 6000 crore, the Company has been denied access to bauxite – the main raw material to run the plant. What is shocking most is that Odisha has majority of bauxite deposits in the country and Vedanta’s one million ton refinery is starved for bauxite. We should shun politics for development of the state”, says former director of mines, B K Mohanty.

Vedanta is running its refinery at less than 30 % for quite some time through sourcing raw material from the country and overseas.