Bhubaneswar, Oct. 13: Vedanta Alumina Limited today closed down its refinery plant at Lanjigarh in Kalahandi district for an indefinite period on the plea of shortage of bauxite.

Chief operating officer of the company Mukesh Kumar said: “We tried our best to procure raw material from different parts of the country but failed. Along with the refinery, power production from its 75MW captive power plant has also been shut down.”

The company had received a jolt after the Union ministry of environment and forest rejected the proposal to mine bauxite from the Niyamgiri hills in 2010. It has been procuring bauxite from Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Gujarat.

“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 ministry of environment and forest has not come to our rescue,” said Kumar.

The BJD government in Odisha, which has been accused of showing favours to the company, has not been able to do much to meet the raw material shortage.

The company has invested around Rs 45,000 crore in Odisha.