Odisha hopes to settle tax row with Nalco, SAIL soon

The Odisha government and two Central PSUs — National Aluminium Company (Nalco) and Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL) today agreed to resolve the dispute over tax arrears thorough mutual discussions in two months.

The two Central PSUs had gone to court, challenging the power dues slapped on them by the state government.

“A decision has been taken to settle the tax dues with Nalco and SAIL through mutual talks. The issue has been pending in courts for many years,” said state chief secretary J K Mohapatra.

Nalco’s chairman and managing director (CMD) Anshuman Das said, “There are certain cases of dispute on ED which are now pending with the Supreme Court. Similarly, there is a water cess case pending in the Odisha HC. Both the issues are expected to be resolved in two months. The matter will be settled by a committee with representatives from the company and the state government.”

The Nalco CMD sounded confident of renewal of its Panchpatmalli bauxite mine lease whose validty period will lapse in November this year. Bauxite from Panchpatmalli mines feeds its alumina refinery at Damanjodi in Koraput district. “The mining lease for Panchpatmalli is going to expire in November but we hope to obtain the renewal before that. I do not foresee any problem in our mining operations,” Das said.

If we get the Pottangi deposits, we will be able to expand our refinery capacity by one million tonne at Damanjodi that will cost Rs 6,000 crore, he added.

Nalco, as per the government claim, owes Rs 1,095 cr towards electricity duty dues and Rs 300 crore towards water cess. Similarly, Rourkela Steel Plant (RSP), a unit of SAIL has electricity duty arrears of Rs 61.25 crore and a case on this matter is pending with the Odisha High Court.

Besides these two central PSUs, there are also other defaulters who have gone to the court against the state’s ED claims putting a question mark on collection of a combined dues of Rs 1,303.51 crore which is now locked up in litigations.

Other industries with ED dues against them are Indian Metals & Ferro Alloys Ltd- IMFA (Rs 40.26 crore), Paradeep Phosphates Ltd- PPL (Rs 18.90 crore), Ballarpur Industries Ltd, Jeypore (Rs 33.03 crore), Mangalam Timbers Production Ltd, Nabarangpur (Rs 13 lakh), Shree Mahavir Ferro Alloys Ltd, Sundargarh (Rs 6.74 crore), Bindal Sponge Pvt Ltd- Talcher (Rs 7.09 crore), Maithan Ispat Ltd - Jajpur (Rs 16.83 crore), OSWAL Chemicals & Fertilizers Ltd (Rs 18.59 crore), Jayashree Chemicals Ltd - Ganjam (Rs 4.5 crore) and Shree Metalicks Ltd- Barbil (Rs 33 lakh).