Worker's death at Jharsuguda plant 'unfortunate', probe on to find exact accident cause: Vedanta

Terming the recent death of a worker at its Jharsuguda plant in Odisha as "unfortunate", mining major Vedanta Ltd has said that investigation is still on and there was no safety lapse on the part of the company.

"We had a very unfortunate accident a couple of weeks back and we are extremely saddened by that...Investigation was still on," Ajay Kapur, CEO, aluminium and power, Vedanta, told PTI.

A worker was found dead at the railway siding area on the plant premises of Vedanta Aluminium Ltd in Jharsuguda a couple of weeks back.

"At Jharsuguda, there was an accident which was unfortunate...I think there was no lapse on account of safety or on account of our focus on safety," Kapur said.

"The fatality actually happened when the electrification of the railway line was going on," he said and explained that "this man was a lineman (disengages the engine with the wagon) and in that process he made some judgemental calls which led to this accident".

Stating that the company follows global safety standards and the accidents should never happen, he said that the airlines sector, which is regarded as one of the safest industries, "also does get into frequent news but you have to see the percentage".

Vedanta -- leading producer of aluminium in India -- produced 1.95 million tonnes of the metal in 2018-19. The company has two aluminium smelters. It operates a two million tonnes per annum (MTPA) alumina refinery in Lanjigarh, Odisha.