The Hindu Business Line : Vedanta setting up rail linkage from Lanjigarh refinery to Ambadala

Chennai, Sept 28 Vedanta Aluminium is setting up a private railway linkage from its Lanjigarh aluminium refinery in Orissa to the nearest railway station at Ambadala, covering a distance of around 16 km to cut down on road transport costs.

The railway project cost has been estimated at around Rs 103 crore, sources said.

The Lanjigarh refinery currently uses road transport for bringing in coal and bauxite ore to the factory and for despatch of refined alumina.

According to informed sources, the new railway line will be in place in a year’s time, by when the company’s input and output volumes would go up substantially.

Cheap and quick

Rail transport is cheaper and quicker.

Second, when inputs reach the nearest station of the Indian Railways, they have to be unloaded and reloaded into trucks, which involves cost, time and wastages.

If the rakes are straight put on the new lines it will reach the factory gate much faster avoiding all these limitations,” sources said.

The Rs 4,500-crore alumina refinery project of the company at tribal Kalahandi district had run into serious difficulties earlier when a fact-finding team, deputed by the Supreme Court’s Central Empowered Committee, said that the company had violated forest laws at the project site.

The refinery envisages to have a total capacity of one million tonnes annually and a captive 100 MW power plant.

The company intends to carry critical inputs such as bauxite and coal through the new railway line. As for the finished product alumina, the parent company, the London-based Vedanta Group, plans to source alumina for its upcoming smelter at Jharsuguda from the Lanjigarh refinery, for which the new lines would be useful.

The contract for laying of the lines has been awarded to a private construction firm, which also include construction of two railway sidings at two ends, sources said.