BALCO to become world's largest aluminium plant

Raipur, Aug 8: The privatised Bharat Aluminium Company Limited (BALCO) is all set for a Rs 80 billion expansion for setting up a new smelter plant of 650,000 tonnes per annum capacity making it the world's largest single location aluminium plant.

Metal major Vedanta group will sign a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Chhattisgarh government this evening to set up the smelter plant at Balco complex at Korba, according to BALCO Chief Executive Officer and Director Pramod Suri.

Chief Minister Dr Raman Singh and Vedanta group Chairman Anil Agrawal would be among those to be present at MOU signing function, he told UNI.

Claiming that the BALCO output would go up from 135,000 tonnes to 10 lakh tonnes per annum after completion of the project, Mr Suri said at present, no company in the world produced one million tonnes aluminium per annum at a single location.

BALCO had taken up a major expansion programme and increased total aluminium production from 135,000 tonnes to 350,000 tonnes per annum in the existing plant. The new smelter plant would be set up at an estimated cost of Rs 80 billion.

In 2001, BALCO was in the midst of a major controversy after the then BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government disinvested 51 per cent equity in the public sector undertaking and handed over management control to M/s Sterlite Industries (India) Limited, which has now become Vedanta Resources.

Mr Suri said the Vedanta group was also in the process of setting up a state-of-the-art cancer hospital and research centre in state capital Raipur.

UNI