Vedanta clarifies

With reference to the article, “Lessons from the Vedanta catastrophe”, by Raghav Chandra that appeared on July 20. It is indeed disheartening to see a seasoned bureaucrat like Chandra writing a piece that is riddled with factual inaccuracies and fictitious arguments. Such articles hurt the reputation of companies and also mislead readers. We would like to state that the copper smelter at Tuticorin that has been operational for 22 years, follows all safety and environment norms and ranks among the world’s best smelters with one of the least SO2 emissions (4.6 kg/T of cathode) next only to the top smelter, Aurubis in Germany at 4.3. Contrary to the allegation, the SO2 generated during copper smelting process at Sterlite Copper is collected and converted into sulphuric acid.

The main source of SO2 emission is not Sterlite Copper but power plants in the region that have an aggregate capacity of 4,000 MW. As per independent assessments, the copper smelter based acid plant emissions contribute less than 1 per cent (approx. 4.2 MT/day) of the total SO2 emissions of approx. 458 MT/day in Tuticorin.

On the other allegation about people suffering ailments in the region, according to Tamil Nadu Cancer Registry, industrialised and less urbanised districts like Tuticorin, Salem, and Vellore are relatively better than more urbanised districts like Chennai, Coimbatore and Erode. As per data on crude incidence rate on cancer, Tuticorin ranks 14th among males and 25th among females out of the 32 districts in Tamil Nadu. Sterlite Copper has invested more than ~500 crore in environmental protection measures (among the highest spends by any industry standard) and the company has transformed the lives of 200,000 people through CSR and community development initiatives.

Finally, the Vedanta group has been pursuing a strategy of simplification of its corporate structure for several years and the proposed transaction of delisting Vedanta Resources from London is part of these ongoing efforts and not at all linked to the sad events at Tuticorin, as mentioned in the article.

Arun Arora Chief Communications Officer Vedanta Limited