Vedanta group’s Founder and Executive Chairman Anil Agarwal has urged India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi through a letter, to re-open the Sterlite copper pant in Tuticorin, TamilNadu.
The plant has the ability to meet 36pc of India’s copper demand – it was however permanently shutdown after a protest in 2018. This has led to a surge in copper imports resulting in loss of $1.2bn on imports into the country. The plant’s materials and machinery have also been idling for two years and has witnessed thousands of job losses, Agarwal wrote in his letter.
He further added that the plant is a state-of-the-art with best technology, environmental-friendly and can help support the country’s “Self sufficient India” drive. Sterlite copper’s copper anode and copper cathode production capacity is 400,000mt annually and copper rod production capacity is 250,000mt annually. In 2018 alone, the plant achieved a record of 403,000mt of copper cathode production before the shutdown.
Vedanta’s total Q4 FY2020 revenues saw a slump due to effect of COVID-19 pandemic.