Vedanta group owned Bharat Aluminium Company ltd (Balco) has taken up major expansion projects for its smelter and power plants in Korba district of Chhattisgarh.
The company had already commenced production from its 288-pots smelter plant with a capacity of 250,000 tonnes and a 540 MW power plant built with a cumulative investment of Rs4,500 crore in a record time.
The under-construction 350,000 tonnes capacity smelter plant is compliant with all the environment regulations, a company statement said here on Friday.
Once producing barely 100,000 tonnes of aluminium, Balco has currently enhanced its production capacity nearly three-and-a-half folds. After the disinvestment of Balco, Sterlite its parent company, Vedanta Inc has pumped a huge investment for the modernization of the plant.
Vedanta Inc, world’s leading company in non-ferrous metal and mining, has been a major contributor for the prosperity and over-all development of Chhattisgarh, the statement said.
Regarding financials, during 2001-02, Balco earned a profit of Rs18.76 crore which went upto to
Rs64.49 crore in 2002-03. Further, the company's profit went up to Rs67.48 crore in 2003-04 and Rs127.45 crore in 2004-05.
The company continued to augment its earning ratio and registered a profit of 168.50 crore in 2005-06, Rs906.52 crore in 2006-07, Rs678.18 crore in 2007-08, and Rs517.36 crore
in 2008-09.
Though Balco shut down the smelter plant in 2009-10 for modernization to introduce Soderberg technology, it did not compromise with the production, productivity, quality and consumer satisfaction. In 2009-10, Balco posted a profit of Rs536 crore.
In 2010-11 and 2011-12, the company registered profit of Rs 441 crore and Rs 266 crore respectively, the statement said.
Balco's growth has brought cheers for the people living in rural areas of Chhattisgarh. At the time of disinvestment, only four villages were covered under the company's corporate social responsibility (CSR) programme.
It has now been enhanced to 121 villages over a period of just a decade. While Balco as Public Sector Unit (PSU) was spending just a few lakhs of rupees for the community development, the fund has now increased to Rs 35 crore.
Balco came into being on November 27, 1965 while the construction work of plant started in 1970. The production in the plant commenced from 1975. Built with the technical support from Hungary and erstwhile Soviet Union, the company had 8 cell houses with 408 electrical pots.