INDIACSR News Network
LANJIGARH: The movement of local people intensifying pressure to run the alumina refinery of Vedanta Aluminium Limited (VAL), Lanjigarh escalated further with more than one thousand project affected people of the refinery at Lanjigarh today gathered at main gate of the plant and met the President & COO Dr. Mukesh Kumar and requested him through a memorandum to restart the refinery which provides livelihood to more than ten thousand people in Kalahandi & Rayagada District.
Dr. Mukesh Kumar assured the localites that the management will try its best to commission the plant. “We have been trying to procure bauxite to run the plant but our attempts went in vain. However, after the decision of the Inter-Ministerial Committee of the state govt on April 30 we may be able to take some concrete steps. As of now it is difficult to give any commitment to run the refinery. We will try our best to get bauxite so that plant can run and thousands of people can earn their livelihood. ”
More than one thousand local people from Lanjigarh, Muniguda, Dahikhal, Ambodala, Biswanathpur area gathered at the plant main gate demanding to run the refinery of Vedanta Aluminium Limited (VAL). “Closure of the plant for the last more than four months has crippled the economy and a large numbers of people are struggling for their livelihood in our region covering Kalahandi and Rayagada district,” said Chandra Pesnia, resident of Lanjigarh.
“The local young entrepreneurs who invested on their business considering the plant operations are now in very serious financial crisis as they could not service the loans repayments advanced by the banks and financers,” said the local people through the memorandum.
Earlier, a delegation of localities, with ten thousand signatures, met the Collector of Kalahandi and Rayagada on April 11, 2013 and requested to run the alumina refinery at Lanjigarh.
