Hopeful of Central nod for six-fold expansion for its alumina refinery here soon, Vedanta today said it was also exploring various bauxite sources to feed its unit, hit by denial of mining operations in Niyamgiri hills.

“We are hopeful that clearance will be given for expanding the capacity of our alumina refinery from present one mtpa to six mtpa,” Mr Mukesh Kumar, President and COO of Vedanta’s alumina refinery said here.

Stating that Vedanta group chairman, Mr Anil Agarwal discussed the matter with Union Environment Minister, Mr Jairam Ramesh recently, he said the company hopes for early clearance as it was fulfilling all laid down conditions and complying with green laws without causing slightest damage to environment.

“Moreover, we are not interested in litigation as we want to concentrate on accelerating our work,” he said.

Describing raw material crunch as a major constraint, Mr Kumar said the company has applied for around eleven bauxite sites in Orissa and expects the state government as well as Centre to expedite applications for at least two reserves.

Vedanta was seriously pursuing nearby Sasubohumali site, which is estimated to have around 82 million tonnes of bauxite, besides Kutramali and Karlapet reserves, he said adding the company was now getting around 60 per cent of raw material for Lanjigarh refinery from Balco in Chhattisgarh.

The rest was being arranged from states like Gujarat, Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Andhra Pradesh, while the company was still unable to get any bauxite inside Orissa, he said.

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