Rusal keen on India, but wants sops

Russian aluminium major Rusal is keen to invest in India but wants the government to give it some flexibility with regard to bauxite mining.

"We want to invest but the legislation on mining of bauxite in states like Orissa and Jharkhand makes setting up of a smelter compulsory with the lease prohibitive," Andrey Gribkov, head of Asia and Africa department, Rusal, said.

Gribkov said the smelter can only be set up if there is a regular supply of power. But with power costs being high and the supply situation not being very good, a captive power plant would have to be envisaged as part of th e project, making it unviable.

He said even if the company looked at setting up a captive power plant, the raw material supply to the power plant was also not assured.

He added that there should be a comprehensive uniform policy on mining.Gribkov said he had met Orissa chief minister Naveen Patnaik regarding the legislation but the government had not taken a view on it.

Rusal had earlier this year said it would invest up to one billion dollar in new acquisitions and was considering a number of sites, including India.

The company is interested in any project which involves alumina surplus as it imports about 50 per cent of its requirement.

It had earlier also expressed interest in picking up stake in the National Aluminium Company Ltd before the government decided not to proceed with the disinvestment of the public sector unit.