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Union mines ministry has stressed on DGPS (Differential Global Positioning System) survey of two bauxite deposits before grant of their mining lease (ML) to engineering & construction major Larsen & Toubro (L&T).
“The ministry has asked us to commission the DGPS survey of Kutrumali and Sijimali bauxite deposits. The survey is going on and we hope to send the report to the ministry after it is completed. Apart from the survey, there is no other roadblock for L&T to get the ML,” said an official source.
Since L&T already has a subsisting prospecting license (PL) over the twin deposits, it is hopeful to bag them. Together both the mines, spread across Rayagada and Kalahandi districts, have 300 million tonne of bauxite reserve.
Despite being a PL holder of the two mines, L&T’s bid to bag the mining lease had come unstuck. The lack of any end use plant had aborted L&T’s earlier attempts to win the ML.
L&T had won PL for Sijimali and Kutrumali bauxite mines in 1992. But the PL had expired two years later, after which the state government had denied ML to L&T since it had no end-use plant.
In 2005, L&T through a joint venture with Dubai Aluminium (Dubal), had proposed a Rs 30,000 crore aluminium complex comprising three million tonne per annum (mtpa) alumina refinery at Rayagada, 1.5 mtpa smelter plant and a captive power plant (CPP).
Though a special purpose vehicle (SPV) called Raykal Aluminium was formed for the purpose, the project remained a non-starter.
Seven years later, in 2012 Dubal walked out of the SPV annd Vedanta Aluminium (now Vedanta Ltd) bought 24 per cent stake in the project.
The grant of ML to L&T over the bauxite deposits can also come to the rescue of Vedanta refinery at Lanjigarh, which is facing raw material crunch due to denial of supplies from Niyamgiri mines on environmental grounds and local protests. The refinery is currently keeping its operation barely afloat by importing bauxite from Chhatisgarh, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh and also from places abroad like New Guinea.
The state government’s counsel in the Supreme Court Uday U Lalit, in 2013, had given a legal opinion in favour of L&T for grant of ML over Kutrumali and Sijimali. The counsel had said that long-term supplies to Vedanta’s refinery from the two bauxite deposits of L&T is legally tenable.
