Search the Internet          Tips  Sites: Finance, Investment

Balco output picks up after shutdown

Production at newly privatised aluminium firm Balco has reached 37 per cent of its capacity, after it resumed operations in early May following a 67-day strike, a senior official said on Wednesday.

"We are now producing about 100 tonnes of aluminium per day," Balco general manager Shaheer Ahmed told Reuters by phone from Korba in Chhattisgarh where the plant is located.

Bharat Aluminium Company, India's third largest aluminium producer, was expected to achieve full production of about 270 tonnes per day in the next two months, he said.

Balco's nearly 7,000 workers were on strike against the government's sale of a 51 per cent stake in the firm to private sector metals firm Sterlite Industries, India's first big-ticket privatisation in a decade of economic reforms.

The strike ended on May 9 after talks between the workers and the new management of the firm.

Another Balco official said about 50 per cent of the total 408 electrolytic pots at the smelter were currently running. The remaining pots were being examined for any damage.

The liquid metal had solidified in the pots because of the shutdown of the smelter during the strike.

"We have found varying degrees of damages in the pots due to solidification of the metal," Ahmed said. "But the real extent of the damage is not yet known."

The company suffered a production loss of around 20,000 tonnes over the strike period, Sterlite Industries Chairman Anil Agarwal said early this month.

RETIREMENT SCHEME IN JULY

Ahmed said the firm would offer a voluntary retirement scheme in July for its employees.

"Balco has a VRS which is open for employees from time to time. The new management has promised that the same scheme would be opened again in July," he said. The scheme offers two months salary for each completed year of service.

Ahmed said the company has planned to modernise the smelter which is not very profitable at the current capacity. "Any decision would be taken only after restoring normal production level."

Set up in 1965 using technology from the former Soviet Union, Balco runs a 200,000-tonne-a-year alumina plant and a 100,000 tonne per annum aluminium smelter. It supplies about 15 per cent of India's total aluminium production.

"Balco has definite plans to expand the capacity and modernise the existing smelter," Ahmed said.

ALSO READ:
The Balco Saga