Bhubaneswar, Sept 30: With a healthy growth of more than 27 per cent in its net profit during 2002-03, the public sector National Aluminium Company (Nalco) has chalked out an ambitious Rs 4,000 crore expansion plan to substantially increase its overall capacity. Announcing the company's financial result here, Nalco chairman-cum-managing director C Venkataramana told reporters that "we expect to have the clearance (for expansion plan) in six months time".

The fresh expansion programme envisaged raising the capacity of bauxite mines to 63 lakh tonnes, alumina capacity to 21 lakh tonnes, aluminium capacity to 4.60 lakh tonnes and installed capacity of the captive power plant (CPP) to 1200 mw, Venkataramana said.
The company has almost completed the first phase of expansion at a total cost of Rs 2541.98 crore after which the mines capacity has gone up to 48 lakh tonnes, alumina capacity to 48 lakh tonnes, aluminium capacity to 3.45 lakh tonnes and CPP to 960 mw.
Speaking about the financial performance, he said that the company posted a net profit of Rs 520.92 crore as against Rs 409.35 crore during previous year, while the sales turnover has gone up from Rs 2,385 crore to Rs 2,788 crore. Bureau Report