Odisha CM opposes NALCO disinvestment, writes to PM

Bhubaneswar: Protesting against Centre’s disinvestment of equity holding in navaratna PSU National Aluminium Company Ltd (NALCO) at regular intervals, Odisha Chief Minister today sought Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s intervention to put further disinvestment on hold.

“NALCO has an excellent track record of performance and is poised for a robust growth in future. To enhance the production capacity of NALCO and increase its profitability, the state government has reserved the Pottangi bauxite deposit over an area of 1738.04 hectares having an estimated resource of about 74 million tones of bauxite in favour of NALCO. The terms and conditions of the mining lease have also been issued by the state government in July last year,” Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik said in the letter.

Besides, High Level Clearance Authority (HLCA) of the state government has recently approved two proposals of the company to expand the capacity of its smelter plant at Angul from 0.46 MTPA to 0.96 MTPA with an investment of Rs 10, 000 crores and enhance the alumina refinery capacity at Damanjodi from 2.275 MTPA to 3.275 MTPA with an investment of Rs 4357.20 crores. The disinvestment move will negatively impact the internal accruals of the company and may even hamper the smooth implementation of these important expansion projects, he further said.

“I would request that appropriate instructions may be issued to the Ministry of Mines to look into the matter to address the concerns of people of Odisha and employees of the company. Further, I would also request that further disinvestment in NALCO may be put on hold,” he concluded.