According to unconfirmed reports, Vedanta Aluminium (VAL) plans to re-start its alumina refinery in Odisha's Kalahandi district at 60 percent capacity as it started getting bauxite from other states.

In December 2012, the company stopped production at the 1-million-tonne per annum alumina refinery in Lanjigarh owing to shortage of bauxite, the key raw material used to produce alumina.

Now, the company is said to be getting bauxite regularly from Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Gujarat. It plans to build a buffer stock of at least one and half lakh tone of bauxite to re-open the refinery. The facility requires 3 lakh tonne of bauxite per month to run the refinery at full capacity.

From Gujarat, VAL received about 35,000 tonne of bauxite. Another shipment of the same quantity from Gujarat is also likely to reach within the next 10 days, reports indicate.

Owing to prolonged litigation, the company is unable to mine bauxite from Niyamgiri Hills near its refinery.

It has also applied for several other bauxite reserves in the state, but none of them have materialised so far. It has been trying to run the plant by buying bauxite from different states.