Vedanta Aluminium Ltd (VAL), a unit of Anil Agarwal—led Vedanta Resources Plc, on Sunday said it has invested Rs 40,000 crore in its Orissa projects and aims to achieve 3,615 MW of generation capacity at its Jharsuguda power plants by the end of next year.
“So far, we have achieved 2,415 MW in our two power plants at Jharsuguda. We hope to achieve 3,615 MW by 2012,” a senior VAL official told PTI over the phone.
At present, the company is supplying around 400—500 MW of power to the state grid and is using the rest for its own requirements, he said.
The company has so far invested around Rs 40,000 crore on its Lanjigarh and Jharsuguda projects in Orissa. It has set up a greenfield alumina refinery with a capacity of 1 million tonnes at Lanjigarh, in Kalahandi.
“We have earmarked Rs 50,000 crore for our Orissa projects and have so far have invested around Rs 35,000—40,000—crore,” he said. The company plans to increase smelting capacity at its Jharsuguda plant to 1.75 million tonnes from the present 0.5 million tonnes by FY’13.
“Construction is going on at the project site and we will achieve 1.75 million tonnes by FY’13,” he said. The company also plans to ramp—up the capacity of its alumina refinery at Lanjigarh to 6 million tonnes from the present 1 million tonnes.
“In the first phase, the company is planning 5 million tpa and around 60 per cent of work for this is complete,” he said. The expansion of the project has, however, run into rough weather, with the Environment Ministry not giving clearance.
The company has moved the Orissa High Court on the issue. On October 21, 2010, the Environment Ministry stopped the expansion of Vedanta’s refinery.