Naveen opposes disinvestment in Nalco

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Protesting the Central government's move for disinvestment of equity holding in Nalco, Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Friday requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi to put further disinvestment in the public sector undertaking on hold.

In a letter to Modi, Patnaik requested him to issue appropriate instructions to the Mines Ministry to look into the matter to address the concerns of people of Odisha and employees of the company.

"Nalco has an excellent track record of performance and is poised for a robust growth in future," he added.

To enhance the production capacity of Nalco and increase its profitability, the Chief Minister said that 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 the mineral for it.

The terms and conditions of the mining lease have also been issued by the state government in July last year, he added.

Noting the state High Level Clearance Authority had recently approved Nalco's proposals to expand capacity of its Angul smelter plant from 0.46 MTPA to 0.96 MTPA at an investment of Rs 10,000 crore and enhance alumina refinery capacity at Damanjodi from 2.275 MTPA to 3.275 MTPA with an investment of Rs 4,357.2 crore, Patnaik said: "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 that there is discontentment among the people of Odisha and employees of the company after the recent disinvestment effected by the central government.

--IANS

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