6. The National Aluminium Company Ltd. (NALCO), Koraput

Located at Koraput, it is the largest aluminium plant of the country. The Company was incorporated in 1981. It obtains bauxite from the bauxite mines at Panchpatmali (District Koraput). It has an installed capacity of 1.6 million tonnes of ingots per year. There is an alumina refinery at Damanjodi (District Koraput) and alumina smelter at Angul. It obtains hydro-electricity from the Angul Power Plant and the port facilities from the Vishakhapatnam for export of alumina and import of caustic soda. It has a capacity ol production of alumina of 8 lakh tonnes per annum. The Central Government has disinvested about 45 per cent of NALCO’s shares.

The Government has approved the second phase expansion of NALCO’s Integrated Aluminium Complex in 2004 at the outlay of Rs. 4,091.51 crore to be completed by 2008. With this expansion, capacity of Bauxite Mines Refinery, Smelter, and Captive Power Plant will increase from 4.8 million tonnes per year to 6.3 million tonnes per year.

Table 11.6 India: Trends of Aluminium Production (000 tonnes)

The aluminium industry has made a commendable progress during the planned period. It may be seen from Table 11.6 that the total production of aluminium was only 4 thousand tonnes in 1950-51 which rose to 585 thousand tonnes in 2005-06. Despite appreciable progress in the production of aluminum, India is not self-sufficient in matter of aluminium.