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Public sector Nalco appears close to winning a second bauxite deposit in Orissa after more than a decade of race with its private sector competitors.
The company has expressed “readiness” to accept the Orissa Government's pre-conditions for the proposed lease area of 1,700 hectares and made a financial commitment on the CSR activity for an unexplored bauxite deposit at Serubandha hill in Koraput district with an estimated deposit 69.03 million tonnes.
The State had earlier acceded “in-principle” allotment of the deposit to Nalco.
Mr B.L. Bagra, Chairman and Managing Director of Nalco, told Business Line that deliberations on the issue recently reached an advanced leg as the company communicated its readiness “in true spirit” to meet the pre-conditions. These talks precede State's permission on prospecting licence.
CSR foundation
“We have made presentation on Tuesday to the State Government on our existing CSR initiatives and discussed terms threadbare”, Mr Bagra said. As suggested by the State, Nalco has also established a new CSR foundation.
Bhubneswar-headquartered Nalco has been spending 1 per cent of its net profits on the CSR activities in the State. “It has committed additional 1 per cent of the net profit for CSR foundation, run by an independent trust,” Mr Bagra said.
The total commitment will be not be less than what the State Government had asked for, the Nalco CMD said. The Orissa Government had wanted that 5 per cent of Nalco's profits from mining activity be spent for the CSR work.
Nalco will soon furnish the exact figure that can be dedicated for the CSR work in around the unexplored deposit.
Serubandha hill
Serubandha hill is approximately 30 km south east of its refinery at Damanjodi and 50 km south-east of Nalco's operational mine in the same district at Panchpatmali, world's largest single site bauxite deposit (310 million tonnes) in the world.
According to Mr Bagra there is no habitation in the proposed deposit area, but the tribal villages are there in the vicinity. The area is recorded as “forest area” even though green cover is mainly of bushes and shrubs. The nearest town Pottangi has a few hundreds of residents.
Like Panchpatmali, bauxite could be transported through conveyor belt to the Damanjodi refinery from Serubandha. The distance from hilltop to the nearest point on NH 43 is around 10 km and an all-weather road needs to be built before commence of any work at the deposit.
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