Bhubaneswar, Nov. 1: Vedanta Alumina chief Anil Agarwal today urged chief minister Naveen Patnaik to ensure bauxite supply to its refinery plant at Lanjigarh in Kalahandi district.

Vedanta had closed its refinery plant at Lanjigarh on October 13 on the plea of shortage of bauxite.

After meeting the chief minister, Agarwal said: “We don’t want to land in any sort of controversy. The chief minister has assured us to put priority on giving bauxite to us.”

The plant had failed to procure raw materials from elsewhgere. Power production from its 75MW captive power plant was also affected.

The company had received a jolt after the Centre rejected the proposal to mine bauxite from the Niyamgiri hills in 2010. It has been procuring bauxite from Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Gujarat to run the refinery.

“Mines in Jharkhand and Andhra Pradesh are lying closed. It is not possible to get bauxite from Chhattisgarh and Gujarat because of legal problems. The Centre has not come to our rescue,” said its chief operating officer Mukesh Kumar.

The company has invested around Rs 45,000 crore in Odisha. Its plant has an installed capacity to produce one million tonne of alumina and was in the process to expand its capacity to six million tonnes when the Centre withdrew the environment clearance. As the mining scam continues to haunt the state government, it has not been able to take any concrete decision to provide alternative mines.