Aluminium industry contributing towards self reliant India

Bharat Aluminium Company Limited (BALCO), India’s iconic Aluminium producer has not only set new benchmarks in the field of production, productivity, research and development, quality et al but has also impacted the society in a positive manner through its various flagship projects. These significant contributions of BALCO through its 56 years long developmental journey have led to the development of state and nation at large, thus, supporting India in its journey of becoming ‘Atma Nirbhar’.

In its stride towards contributing in nation development, BALCO continued with the business operations by adhering to COVID safety protocols during the testing times of pandemic. Though the organization was also affected by the COVID induced worldwide economic challenges but the resilience of BALCO employees and its business partners drove the production process. It can be affirmed that India is gradually waking up to the potential of its minerals and metals industry, which ensured that the wheels of the economy kept running, despite the ravages of the pandemic. In fact, India’s mining GDP increased from INR 739.90 billion in the fourth quarter of 2020 to INR 913.03 billion in the first quarter of 2021, as per data from the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MOSPI).

Abhijit Pati, CEO and Director, BALCO, says, “Aluminium is a metal of significant strategic importance to India, critical to almost all sectors of significance to modern life and essential to build a sustainable tomorrow. By virtue of its unusual properties like high strength-to-weight ratio, exceptional design flexibility, superior thermal & electrical properties, 100% recyclability over and over again, Aluminium’s demand in space exploration, aviation, electric vehicles, renewable energy production, electricity transmission, construction, consumer goods, and more, is only slated to increase.”

“BALCO is playing a crucial role in introducing Aluminium as a potential alternative to other metals in various sectors such as in power transmission industry. BALCO has been an early adopter of smart technologies for heightened operational efficiencies, which further bolsters the culture of energy optimization, safety, and productivity that we have meticulously fostered across the organization. Our primary focus is delivering value of the highest standard to our stakeholders. We are constantly motivated towards improving our costs and our quality of production in each of our business through a culture of best practice benchmarking.”, he said.

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India is a leading player in the global Aluminium industry with the second largest Aluminium production capacity of about 4 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) of which around 55 per cent is produced by Vedanta group constituting 15 per cent production by BALCO. Vedanta Group and BALCO has always worked towards strengthening research and development in accordance with market needs. The highly advanced R&D capability has allowed the production of sophisticated alloys such as Primary Foundry Alloy and Cylinder-Head Alloy for the automotive industry, and AlSi3 for the steel industry for the very first time in India. Before Vedanta produced them indigenously, these alloys were being entirely imported into India. Vedanta also recently launched High-Speed Billets, a special billet variant with advanced metallurgical properties to significantly boost productivity of extruders.  

BALCO is one of the major producers of wire rods in the country and also produces Primary Aluminium ingots that are re-melted to produce a variety of end products covering the entire spectrum of Aluminium applications using the state of art technology. BALCO is also equipped to deliver high quality rolled products in segments with application in automobiles, insulations, bus bars, power projects, electrical, packaging etc.

The global Aluminium consumption has been driven majorly by India and China having growth rate of approximately 10% till pre COVID times. Last decade has seen India’s consumption almost double from 2.2 million tons in FY-11 to about 4 million tons in FY-19. India’s Aluminium demand is estimated to double again by the year 2025 with current resilient GDP growth rate driven by increasing urbanization and push for boosting domestic infrastructure, automotive, aviation, defence, and power sectors. 

Talking about Chhattisgarh, the state is already in an advantageous position in terms of industrial development, the need of the hour is to undertake requisite policy measures to support the downstream Aluminium industries which will further create numerous employment opportunities. Also supply of large scale processed Aluminium from Chhattisgarh to neighbouring states and worldwide will only lead to an escalation in the revenue figures.