Monday, September 17, 2012

Locals urge MP to save Vedanta refinery

The Pioneer, Sept 16, 2012

After Vedanta Aluminium Limited’s Lanjigarh alumina plant closure notice to the State Government, the save-Vedanta movement seems to be escalating further with hundreds of local people working at the alumina refinery meeting Kalahandi MP Bhakta Charan Das on Saturday and pleading for saving the plant from closure.
The locals handed over a memorandum to the MP seeking his intervention in taking their concern to the appropriate authorities so that closure of the Lanjigarh refinery can be averted.
The local workforce, more than 300 in numbers, approached the Congress leader at his residence in Bhawanipatna and requested him to consider their demand. “If Vedanta at Lanjigarh will be shut down, thousands of local people working at the refinery will be jobless and livelihood of more than 10,000 people would get affected directly or indirectly,” said Hari Majhi, a local employee and a member of the displaced families.
The local workforce also told Das that in spite of having several bauxite deposits in Kalahandi, industrialisation in the district is facing a setback following VAL closure notice to the State Government owing to lack of regular supply of bauxite.
“We, the local workforce of the company and residents of Kalahandi request your kind intervention in taking our concern to the appropriate authorities so that the present situation can be averted and more employment opportunities can be created for the people of Kalahandi,” they stated in the memorandum submitted to the MP.
This move was followed by a series of demonstrations and agitations by the local people of Lanjigarh area and the local workforce of the refinery, demanding regular supply of bauxite to the company from within Odisha. This series of ‘Save Vedanta Movement’ comes in the wake of the closure notice sent by Vedanta Aluminium Limited to the State Government seeking temporary closure of its Lanjigarh refinery from December 5.

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